This is the third book we have read now that devotes each chapter to a different person or event. As with the other two this one is very well done. I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing a situation from many different perspectives.
Bull Run gives the reader the opportunity to see one battle through the eyes of 16 people. Eight of whom are Northern and eight of whom are southern. The voices are male and female, young and old, black and white. It is the most complete picture of the Civil War that I have encountered in any one place. Fleishman is able to bring the humanity out of this battle and teach us a lesson about the true nature of war.
It is suggested in my addition that this work could be done as a readers theater. The author even breaks down the characters by name, Northern or Southern, and gives the page numbers for each character. I think that this would make a wonderful play for a drama club in middle school. In fact my husband is in charge of his middle schol's drama club and I intend to pitch it to him.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Bull Run By: Paul Fleischman
This is the third book we have read now that devotes each chapter to a different person or event. As with the other two this one is very well done. I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing a situation from many different perspectives.
Bull Run gives the reader the opportunity to see one battle through the eyes of 16 people. Eight of whom are Northern and eight of whom are southern. The voices are male and female, young and old, black and white. It is the most complete picture of the Civil War that I have encountered in any one place. Fleishman is able to bring the humanity out of this battle and teach us a lesson about the true nature of war.
It is suggested in my addition that this work could be done as a readers theater. The author even breaks down the characters by name, Northern or Southern, and gives the page numbers for each character. I think that this would make a wonderful play for a drama club in middle school. In fact my husband is in charge of his middle schol's drama club and I intend to pitch it to him.
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5 comments:
I really enjoyed this book as well! I loved how you got 16 different perspectives on the same event. I really don't know that much about the Civil War and was even surprised to remember that Bull Run took place in Virginia, but I feel like I really learned a lot from this book
In the book I had too, a Reader's Theatre was suggested and I think this would be a great idea if you were teaching the grade when the Civil War is taught. On my blog, I wrote how students would probably get a lot more out of reading this book instead of boring, old facts from an outdated textbook. The story would be a great teaching tool in addition to the textbook. I completely agree with you on the fact that this is probably the most complete picture of the Civil War I have as well. I thought Fleischman wrote a well-balanced account of the Civil War.
I too was impressed with Fleishman's presentation of so many perspectives on the Civil War. There were so many details I really hadn't thought of before - like how they got their uniforms - in my foolishness I assumed they just sent out one big order from each army and waited for them to arrive! I think Doug would have great success doing this as a reader's theater.
"Bull Run" does give a fairly complete picture of the Civil War including so many different people with so many different points of view. I found that I need to keep a graphic organizer as I read to sort all the people out since each chapter was so short. I can see it being very successful as reader's theater. Let us know if your husband tries it with his class(es).
This book was one that I had a difficult time putting down. Not necessarily for the events (because war very much bothers me), but because of the characters. I kept flipping back to retrace who was doing what and what was so interesting or heart-tugging about each character. I think that this would be a very good choice of a book to do for a higher level Readers Theatre.
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