Summary
On a dreary spring day, a brother and sister are left inside with nothing to do. Their grandmother tells them to use their beautiful and brilliant minds to make up for them being bored. They did exactly that and they weren’t bored anymore! This precious skill, their grandmother tells them, harkens back to the days long before they were born, when their ancestors showed the world the strength and resilience of their beautiful and brilliant minds.
Theme(s):
Family, Racism, Traditions
Personal Response
This book was so enjoyable for more than one reason. The art is so colorful it draws your eyes right in. You are also able to see children use their imaginations and truly see how wide it gets! You then have a bit of history being taught how those who suffered when they were enslaved used their beautiful minds to escape from that heartache. I think this is a great way to show children how hard things ever are, people may have it worse.
Teaching Ideas
A great way tool to go with this lesson is allowing children to reflect on a time where they were bored, angry, tired, etc. and think of what they do to help cope with those feelings. They can draw and write down how they were feeling and they way they like to overcome those feelings. What’s ice about this is that children get to reflect on their emotions and see how the can control their feelings!
Recommended Reading Level
Grade 01, Grade 02, Grade 03
