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Sweet Smell of Roses, A

Publication Information

Author: Johnson, Angela

Illustrator: Velasquez, Eric

Title: Sweet Smell of Roses, A

Date: 2005

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

City: New York

ISBN, paperback: 0-689-832252-4

ISBN, hardback:

Recommended audience:

ABE/ABLE:

ESOL:

Family: Yes

Young Adult:

Picture: Yes

General Information:

Book Type(s): historical fiction

HSE Descriptor(s): social studies

Summary:

The book jacket says it all: "There's a sweet, sweet smell in the air as two young girls sneak out of their house, down the street, and across town to where men and women are gathered, ready to march for freedom and justice?--with Martin Luther King, Jr. The realistic and sympathetic illustrations personalize the now almost mythic event.

Teaching Ideas:

This easy reading book is a good addition to a Civil Rights text set for a multi-level classroom. Students can do further research into the various marches during the Civil Rights era. Timelines could chart the important laws that resulted from the marches. The book raises questions that readers will want to speculate about--how the girls knew about the march, how they knew where to go, and why they went secretly. The significance of the title should generate lots of discussion. Readers could write an unsent letter to the mother about the feelings she must have experienced. Readers should also enjoy conjecturing about why and how the illustrator used the color red in otherwise black-and-white pictures.

Teaching Strategies: