Historical Fiction Literacy Analysis

Due: Week 6, 9-29-16

Submit file & URL (both) to Assignments due 9/29
Definition/description:
Historical fiction books involve a combination of facts and imagination.
These texts also describes how life was in the past, can also create a
moment for readers to witness different time eras. It gives children
awareness into history and teaches them of the human struggles that
occurred through centuries. Characters in these books are believable and
their dialogue reflects the historical period the book portrays.
Types of Historical Fiction:
Type I: Authors write a fictional story woven around actual events
and people from the past, creating an integral setting.
Number the Stars, Lois Lowry, 1989 & The Fighting Ground, Avi, 1984
Type II: Authors write a fictional story with a backdrop setting, in
which the historical events and people are not extensively
featured or discussed.
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1988 & Turtle in Paradise,
Jennifer L. Holm, 2010
Type III: Authors recreate their own personal lives and experiences
from a time in history from their memories, family documents, and
research.
The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, Gloria Houston, 1988 & When I Was
Young IN the Mountains, Cynthia Rylant, 1982
Learning from Historical Fiction
History helps students to think and feel. It provides opportunities for
students to experience times in the past that they cannot physically visit. It
also helps them to have a better sense of emotional awareness. They learn
how to respond to conflict, that sadness is a part of life, and how to
appreciate joyous times in life. It also shows children that times change
and change is a consistent thing.
I would pair historical fiction books with social studies lessons in my
classroom. This will help students get a better understanding of what
happen during that era. As well as give the students more detail and an
opportunity to put themselves in that setting through reading about the
time. This will overall give my students deeper comprehension of important
dates in social studies.
Historical Fiction Literacy Analysis
Book description & theme.
Levine, E., & Nelson, K. (2007). Henry's freedom box. New York: Scholastic
Press.
This is a true story of how a young African-American male grew up during

the period of the underground railroad. He lived in a time where he was

born into slavery and did not even know when his birthday was. As he grew
older, he learned that some slaves were given their freedom. But he did
not, he got married and had children who were later sold away to a new
master. After this horrible life event Henry thought of a way to escape
slavery and give himself freedom.
Setting.
In the beginning of the story the author does not give us a specific date of
when this is taking place. But as we continue to read we find out that
Henry is born into slavery and does not have a birthday. We also learn that
Henry grows up and is now in a time where some people are letting their
slaves get freedom, but some are not. Henry is in the era of the
underground railroad. All of these things really set the sad, serious, and
gloomy tone for the story. By the end of the book the author shares a
physical date, March 30th 1849, Henrys birthday.
Plot.
Henry is the protagonist and his conflict is slavery, which he was born into
and it seemed very difficult for him to get out of it. His conflict was a
character versus society problem. It also displayed some foreshadowing
when his wife thought master would sell her and the kids for money. The
author uses a episodic plot, one incident is lined to another while we watch
Henrys life unfold.
Characters.
We were introduced to a few characters, but they all were flat, we did not
get too much background or trait information from the author about the
other characters. The author really focused on the main character Henry,
he was a round character. We learned that as a young boy, he had qualities
of trustworthiness, we learned that he was a hard worker, we learned that
he was patient to wait for freedom and then learned that he was strong
enough to put everything on the line to gain his freedom. I feel that the
other characters came in to show us the love Henry had in his heart and
how slavery tried to rip all of that away from him, by removing his mother,
wife, and children.
Style & Tone.
The authors style of writing sets the tone, even when Henry found a bit of
happiness in his life the author made sure not to make the happiness to
extreme. His tone was steady throughout all of the events in the story
which lets the reader know this is not a fairy tale, this is real-life situations.
There is figurative language in the title Henrys Freedom Box, this is not
just any box it displays the process of movement through the underground
railroad. All of these qualities contribute to the serious and hurtful tone the
author writes with.

 Literacy Growth.
This book promotes students literacy growth because there is not a lot of
focus on African-American history in school curriculum, students get about
two weeks of information on this topic in February. However, this book
gives students a better understanding of what happened in this country a
few years ago. I think this style of writing will inspire kids to write more
because they know that they can write about anything. It gives them the
confidence to write about things that people normally are too afraid to
write about. This book could inspire a love of reading because the detail
and illustrations takes the reader out of their life and into a different life,
being able to feel and take part in a different setting is a good feeling.
Illustrations Illustrations/Style/Color:
I believe the illustrator did an amazing job with the pictures in this book.
The pictures could tell Henrys story without the words. The illustrator uses
drawings in this book and does not label them. I believe the illustrator used
the same tone of colors throughout the book that paired well with the tone
of the book-sadness. Only at the end when Henry made it out of the box to
freedom do we see bright colors, which contributes to the happiness we
feel when seeing Henry finally free. These illustrations help foster the
childrens imagination because they may not be able to visualize slavery
independently because they have never witnessed it.
Book Rating. Rate the book on a scale of 0 to 5: Rate the book according
to your discussion of it above.
I would rate this book a 4 out of 5 because I would have liked the author to
slow down a bit, I feel as thought Henrys transition from childhood to
adulthood moved very quickly. The uniqueness of the authors style is
something that is not easily achieved when presenting this type of
information to young children. This book can relate to many students
because they will learn that although their lives may have some tough
obstacles, they can think of a way to find happiness in any situation.
Minority students would be able to relate to the book because the
characters will resemble them. This book shows children a vivid and great
example of what slavery and the time of the underground railroad looked
like.
Reference Page
Holm, J. L. (2010). Turtle in paradise. New York: Random House.
Houston, G., & Cooney, B. (1988). The year of the perfect Christmas tree: An Appalachian story.
New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.
Levine, E., & Nelson, K. (2007). Henry's freedom box. New York: Scholastic Press.
Lowry, L. (1989). Number the stars. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Rylant, C., Goode, D., Durell, A., & Levinson, R. (1982). When I was young in the mountains.
New York: E.P. Dutton.

Speregen, D. N., Burnett, F. H., & Lauter, R. (1994). The secret garden. New York, NY: Modern
Pub.
A. (2009). The fighting ground. HarperCollins.