Reading Journal 9

Up Before Daybreak: Cotton and the People in America
By: Deborah Hopkinson

This was a great book covering so much historical information with pictures, interviews, and stories. I liked that the author used real people to tell the history and their view of the early times of cotton. The pictures also helped to make sense of what things were like then.

I feel this book is wonderful for students to use in history and in language arts classes. The detail and accurate account the book gives of the beginning of cotton for the United States is a good tool for exploring through text. The genre of writing, historical non-fiction is a tool that can be used in any LA class; and this book is a strong example of such writing.

The main reason I feel that students will enjoy this book, is due to the great pictures, neat facts, and focus on children’s lives back then. What child wouldn’t want to know what it would be like for them if they lived in a different time? I believe that the way Hopkinson ties in important factual detail and evidence, with kids’ stories helps children of today get interested and relate to the children of the past.

This book also has a bibliography, notes, and index!!!! These are all tools students can learn to use with this book and will help them read and reread when needed!

My only complaint with this book is that it doesn’t bring us up to present day; granted that would make the book much longer. I wish that it would tie in today through its timeline to help students make the connection of present day to the past read about in this story.