Title: Boston Tea Party
Author: Pamela Duncan Edwards
Illustrator: Henry Cole
Publisher & Year of Publication: Penguin Young Readers Group
Genre: Informational
Recommended Audience: Ages 8-12
Summary: This book tells the story of the Boston Tea Party. It covers different topics such as where tea comes from and what happened after the Boston Tea Party took place. This book covers different historical figures and events; therefore this book would be most appropriate for upper elementary students.
Evaluation/Reflection: This book is very informative, but would be a challenging read-aloud, as it is filled with lines, captions, and bits of information throughout the pages.
Memorable Literary Moment: The book uses captions from little mice in the illustrations that explain in further detail what is happening or who the people are in the pictures.
Illustrations: Mostly muted water colored paintings, but there is humor in the artwork.
Review: This picture book opens in a far-off, long-ago land where sari-draped women pick tea leaves and ends with a modern-day July 4th celebration, complete with fireworks. In between, the history of the Boston Tea Party unfolds in cumulative, clumsy prose with cartoon Colonial mice explaining in asides, "Dressing up as Mohawks will fool the British," and reminding each other not to "dump any cheese by mistake." However, the double-page acrylic-and-colored-pencil illustrations help compensate for the awkwardness of the telling. George III is portrayed in all his removed-from-it-all pomposity while patriots are shown as down-to-business and capable. (British mice are appropriately attired in red coats.) A pictorial time line summarizes the whole shebang-from the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Steven Kroll's The Boston Tea Party (Holiday, 1998) is a finely illustrated alternative for slightly older kids. Despite mixed results, Edwards's title may have value as an introduction to this important historical event. – School Library Journal
Promotion Idea: A bulletin board with a large scale version of the timeline used in the back of the book would be eye-catching and informative when students are learning about the American Revolution.
Acquisition: Public library, or available on Amazon for $13.59 (hardcover).
Author: Pamela Duncan Edwards
Illustrator: Henry Cole
Publisher & Year of Publication: Penguin Young Readers Group
Genre: Informational
Recommended Audience: Ages 8-12
Summary: This book tells the story of the Boston Tea Party. It covers different topics such as where tea comes from and what happened after the Boston Tea Party took place. This book covers different historical figures and events; therefore this book would be most appropriate for upper elementary students.
Evaluation/Reflection: This book is very informative, but would be a challenging read-aloud, as it is filled with lines, captions, and bits of information throughout the pages.
Memorable Literary Moment: The book uses captions from little mice in the illustrations that explain in further detail what is happening or who the people are in the pictures.
Illustrations: Mostly muted water colored paintings, but there is humor in the artwork.
Review: This picture book opens in a far-off, long-ago land where sari-draped women pick tea leaves and ends with a modern-day July 4th celebration, complete with fireworks. In between, the history of the Boston Tea Party unfolds in cumulative, clumsy prose with cartoon Colonial mice explaining in asides, "Dressing up as Mohawks will fool the British," and reminding each other not to "dump any cheese by mistake." However, the double-page acrylic-and-colored-pencil illustrations help compensate for the awkwardness of the telling. George III is portrayed in all his removed-from-it-all pomposity while patriots are shown as down-to-business and capable. (British mice are appropriately attired in red coats.) A pictorial time line summarizes the whole shebang-from the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Steven Kroll's The Boston Tea Party (Holiday, 1998) is a finely illustrated alternative for slightly older kids. Despite mixed results, Edwards's title may have value as an introduction to this important historical event. – School Library Journal
Promotion Idea: A bulletin board with a large scale version of the timeline used in the back of the book would be eye-catching and informative when students are learning about the American Revolution.
Acquisition: Public library, or available on Amazon for $13.59 (hardcover).