ReadWriteThink: December 19, 2009: Author Eve Bunting was born in Ireland on this day in 1928.

December 19, 2009

		Now a resident of the United States, Eve Bunting is an acclaimed author of picture books and novels. Bunting’s picture books have tackled sensitive issues such as homelessness, death, aging, and war. Her books have won numerous awards, including the Golden Kite Award and a Caldecott Medal in 1995 for Smoky Night. Image courtesy of HarperCollins

Author Eve Bunting was born in Ireland on this day in 1928.

CLASSROOM ACTIVITY

One trademark of Bunting’s picture books is her ability to see events through the eyes of a child. Smoky Night deals with the Los Angeles race riots as seen from the perspective of a young boy watching the fires and the looters. His reactions to this event are, understandably, different from those of his mother and neighbors. Before reading this picture book aloud to students, read them a news article that relates the details of the events in Los Angeles. Ask students how a younger observer might be affected by these events and might see the events differently than an adult. After reading Smoky Night, assess the accuracy of students’ perceptions.

As an alternative or follow-up activity, have students locate and read two different accounts of the events of September 11, 2001, one written by an adult and one written by a child. Ask them to compare the two accounts.

Lesson Plans

Creating Family Timelines: Graphing Family Memories and Significant Events
In this lesson, students in grades 3–5 participate in read-alouds and discussions, conduct interviews, and create graphic family timelines about important family events. Eve Bunting’s The Memory String is one of the selections for read-aloud.

Fighting Injustice by Studying Lessons of the Past
This lesson for grades 6–8 uses Bunting’s book Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust to begin a comparative study of the experience of European Jews during the Holocaust, Cherokees during the Trail of Tears, and Japanese-Americans during World War II.

Peace Poems and Picasso Doves: Literature, Art, Technology, and Poetry
In this lesson, students in grades 3–5 apply think-aloud strategies to reading and to the composition of artwork and poetry, using books such as Bunting’s Smoky Night.

Web Links

Exclusive Interviews: Eve Bunting
This page from the Reading Rockets website includes the text of an interview with author Eve Bunting, several audio clips of the interview, and an annotated list of some of her most popular books.

Eve Bunting
Kidsreads.com offers a brief biography of Bunting and links to information about a few of her books. The biography is written simply, so it is an excellent resource for younger students to obtain biographical information on Bunting.

Eve Bunting
This feature from Scholastic includes a brief biography of Bunting, the transcript of an interview with her, and a bibliography of her books.

A Teacher’s Guide to Books by Eve Bunting
Houghton Mifflin offers this collection of classroom activities for use with several of Bunting’s books, including Train to Somewhere, The Wednesday Surprise, and The Memory String.

Texts

Bunting, Eve. 1994. Smoky Night. Voyager Books.
The events of the Los Angeles race riots are seen through the eyes of a child searching for his lost cat.

Bunting, Eve. 1996. Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust. Jewish Publication Society.
An allegory of the Holocaust, this story tells of frightened animals who fear the “terrible things” that come and take away their fellow creatures.

Bunting, Eve. 2000. The Memory String. Clarion Books.
A young girl comes to terms with the loss of her mother, accepting her new stepmother as she learns that making new memories can be as important as remembering the past.

Bunting, Eve. 2006. One Green Apple. Clarion Books.
A Teachers’ Choice for 2007, this picture book tells the story of Farah, a Muslim immigrant to the United States who is feeling shy and homesick on a trip to an apple orchard with her classmates.