Available:*
Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Cabell County Public Library | 976.4062 W | Juvenile | Searching... Unknown |
| Book | Searching... Logan Area Public Library | 976.4062 W | Juvenile | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
East Texas, the 1930s--the Great Depression. Award-winning author Jonah Winter's father grew up with seven siblings in a tiny house on the edge of town. In this picture book, Winter shares his family history in a lyrical text that is clear, honest, and utterly accessible to young readers, accompanied by Kimberly Bulcken Root's rich, gorgeous illustrations. Here is a celebration of family and of making do with what you have--a wonderful classroom book that's also perfect for children and parents to share.
Author Notes
Children's author and illustrator Jonah Winter was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1962. He has created many popular books, including works about baseball and biographies of famous individuals including Frida Kahlo, Roberto Clemente, and Barack Obama.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 4-The wonder of nonfiction these days is how beautifully it is written. No more lackluster text meant to inform but not to delight. Winter has told the story of the Great Depression through the eyes of his father, who was the youngest of eight children at that time. Further, he tells the story in eloquent verse that is a treat to read aloud. Its unhurried pace feels like the time period in which people sat on porches with their banjos and played games. While his father's family barely scraped by, the children never went hungry and their pride was intact. Winter incorporates quite a few facts about the Depression that supplement the family's experience. He tells about the Hoovervilles where the homeless camped and the wandering hoboes who left signs for those coming after them to identify a friendly home. Root's soft and nostalgic pastel palette is the perfect choice for the verse that is equally soft and nostalgic. The endpapers adorned with the author's family photos extend the artwork and the topic even further. This book will have more of an impact on readers than a listing of facts about the era. Seeing how real people led their lives with an appreciation for things "that didn't cost a single penny" brings the period alive in a way that a textbook never could. A great addition to any library.-Joan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Root's sun-faded, ink-and-wash drawings make gentle companions for Winter's (Here Comes the Garbage Barge!) account of his father's hardscrabble Depression-era childhood. She softens the rough edges and sees the beauty of the East Texas country where Grandpa Winter lives with his wife and eight children. Directly addressing his father in second-person narration, Winter pulls no punches about the humiliation Grandpa Winter faced to keep his family fed ("Some mornings... he had to run a footrace against other men like him./ If he won, that meant he got to work that day"); Root (Whatever Happened to the Pony Express?) shows Grandpa Winter crossing the finish line a stride ahead of the other men. "But you've also said/ you never went hungry," Winter recalls, as Root draws the family gathered around a table spread with vegetables from the garden. There's time for fun, too, such as a trip to the icehouse in the old Model T. Winter's writing is thoughtful and deeply felt. Root's portraits of the boy's solitary exploration convey the force of Winter's message about "learning to love those things/ that didn't cost a single penny." Ages 5-9. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
"There were ten of you -- eight kids and your parents -- in four small rooms. You slept at the foot of one bed because there were only two beds and you were the youngest...I know, because you've told me, Dad." Choosing an unusual but effective narrative voice, Winter addresses his father, retelling Dad's own tales of growing up poor in East Texas. Dad described his own father competing for scarce, ill-paid jobs by running footraces. His strong, hardworking mother once faced down a wandering bull, though storms terrified her. The family lacked indoor plumbing, but with homegrown food, "you never went hungry." Hoboes who shared their modest fare brought stories from farther afield: riding the rails, seeing the grim Hoovervilles up north. Remembering his boyhood, Dad is still proud that "poor as we were, my folks never took one dime from the government," though the author observes that "maybe they should have." Still, they enjoyed good times with books, music, companionship, the natural world to explore, and "learning to love those things that didn't cost a single penny." This window into a time when people took scarcity for granted is effectively visualized in Root's pencil, ink, and watercolor art, where sturdy, active figures inhabit simple surroundings rendered in a palette dominated by blue, gray, and brown, while storefronts tout such prices as "Hair Cuts 5 cents." Eight vintage snapshots of the family appear on the endpapers. joanna rudge long From HORN BOOK, Copyright The Horn Book, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In this unusual picture book, Winter tells of his father's East Texas childhood during the 1930s. The parents (the writer's grandparents) look after their eight children in a tiny house without electricity or indoor plumbing. Grandpa Winter took any work he could get, while Grandma Winter raised food, cooked, cleaned, and milked the cow. Terrified of thunderstorms, she'd herd her children into the cellar before an approaching storm and wail with fright. Elements of the story, such as having a father who can't find work, will resonate with children today. There's a tinge of nostalgia to the story, in which Winter addresses his father directly, reminding him of tales he has told about his childhood. But the narrative clearly conveys a child's-eye view of the Great Depression and offers hope for the blue skies of better days. Written in evocative vignettes and illustrated (using pencils, ink, and watercolors) with sensitivity to the characters' emotions as well as their surroundings, this picture book brings the 1930s sharply into focus.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THREE new biographical picture books portray children living through challenging circumstances; growing up in East Texas during the Depression, building a new life in the Bronx in the 1960s after escaping from Castro's Cuba, and hiding from the Nazis in the Italian countryside during World War II. Perhaps they'll teach children today that even the greatest difficulties can be overcome through determination, optimism and familial love. At the very least, they'll provide an excellent moral lesson: If your biggest problem is not having the latest Webkinz, things could be a lot worse. "Born and Bred in the Great Depression," Jonah Winter's love letter to his father, is the most poetic of the three. Kimberly Bulcken Root's first spread sets the tone: a train steams through a nighttime landscape, rendered in a wash of indigo, slate and midnight blue. There's a rundown shack, an outhouse, a vast skyful of stars. Winter addresses his father: Where you grew up, on the edge of town, next to the tracks, you could hear the trains going by at night. The book manages to be melancholy without being sad. Despite the family's lack of money, Dad, the youngest of eight, is never hungry - not with the chickens and the vegetable plot and the canning skills of Granny Winter, who offers mashed-bean sandwiches to hobos with even less than her family has. Grandpa Winter keeps his dignity as he competes for the right to spread tar on railroad ties in the hot sun for 10 cents an hour. Years later, Winter writes: When I think of the Great Depression, I picture a whole country of people tough as Grandpa and Granny Winter, not giving up, even when it seemed like there was nothing left to lose - waiting out a storm that seemed like it would never end and then finally waking to the blue skies of better days. Winter is a prolific author of children's nonfiction - he's written picture books about Gertrude Stein, Gilbert and Sullivan, and the renegade Long Island garbage barge. But "Born and Bred in the Great Depression" is the first of his books I've found deeply engaging on an emotional level. Root's old-fashioned pencil, ink and watercolor illustrations - sometimes a bit stilted and awkward-looking - work well with the text. The endpapers feature vintage photos of Winter's family. Where Winter's tone is lyrical, Edie Colón's, in "Good-bye, Havana! Hola, New York!" is matter-of-fact: As Fidel Castro gains power in Cuba, 6-year-old Gabriella, a fictionalized character based on Colón's own experiences, learns that the government has closed her grandparents' restaurant. She overhears her grandfather, Abito, saying that Castro has the power to take away people's freedom. So Mami and Papi and Gabriella move to the Bronx, hoping Abito and Abuelita will be able to join them. Colón teaches English as a second language; it shows in the way she structures the dialogue. As if to emphasize Gabriella's dislocation, early conversations in the book are rendered first in Spanish, then in English: "Gabriella, hay muchos problemas en Cuba. Gabriella, there are many problems in Cuba." But it tends to feel a little forced. The art, however, is a grand slam. Raúl Colón, the author's husband, has done everything from New Yorker covers to murals in the New York City subway system to children's books (including a biography of Roberto Clemente written by Jonah Winter). He uses layers of paint and lithograph pencil on textured watercolor paper to create lush, soft, almost pointillist pictures, then creates still more texture by etching in wavy lines. Gabriella has a lovely, sincere face - I could feel Raúl Colón's love for his wife coming through the pages. "I Will Come Back for You," by Marisabina Russo ("A Very Big Bunny"), is the most exciting of the three books but also the scariest. Our narrator's grandmother, Nonna, decides the time has come to tell her granddaughter the story of her charm bracelet; the donkey, the piano, the bicycle, the piglet, the barn, the spinning wheel and the ship. Charm by charm, Nonna tells of her girlhood in an upper-class Jewish family in Italy. As the Nazis gain power, the family's fortunes change. Luckily, righteous gentiles help them again and again: the Silvestri brothers help Mamma escape from a policeman (on a bicycle - hence the bicycle charm), and Signor Brunelli hides Nonna and her brother in market baskets with piglets on their heads (the piglet charm). After the war, Mamma learns that Papà has been killed. Strangers now occupy their apartment in Rome. They set out for America (hence the ocean liner). The pleasingly flat, bright, folk-arty paintings should appeal to young readers, and again, the endpapers show real family photos. An informative afterword clarifies Russo's family story and gives a bit more historical background without delving into too terrifying detail. Indeed, each of these books makes frightening times informative yet manageable for a young audience. And they'll please parents who want to teach children that life isn't all Skittles and PlayStations. Marjorie Ingall is the parenting columnist for Tablet magazine.
