Farah feels alone, even when surrounded by her classmates. She listens and nods but doesn't speak. It's hard being the new kid in school, especially when you're from another country and don't know the language. Then, on a field trip to an apple orchard, Farah discovers there are lots of things that sound the same as they did at home, from dogs crunching their food to the ripple of friendly laughter. As she helps the class make apple cider, Farah connects with the other students and begins to feel that she belongs. Ted Lewin's gorgeous sun-drenched paintings and Eve Bunting's sensitive text immediately put the reader into another child's shoes in this timely story of a young Muslim immigrant.
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Bunting (Fly Away Home) once again delves into a timely social topic with a straightforward, rather simplistic treatment-in this instance, the integration of an immigrant child into a rural setting. Farah, on her second day of school, goes on a field trip to an apple orchard. "I think it odd to have boys and girls sit together. It was not like this in my village." Her first-person narration gives the story authenticity, making readers privy to a newcomer's feelings of confusion and frustration. After her teacher explains that Farah is to pick only one apple, the girl chooses a hard, presumably unripe one from a tree that "is small and alone, like me." She notices many things: her classmates' smiles (some unfriendly, some warmer); how her dupatta (head scarf) is the only thing that sets her clothing apart from her peers; and how the sounds she hears (laughter, a classmate belching) are universal. Lewin's light-filled watercolors often resemble photographs, especially when depicting the students. Though Farah's insightfulness seems beyond her years, the symbolism of her green apple and the students' apple cider as a "melting pot" comes across as thoughtful, not overdone. Ages 5-8. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
From: Reed Elsevier Inc.
Copyright Reed Business Information
Eve Bunting, 1928 - Eve Bunting was born in 1928 in Maghera, Ireland, as Anne Evelyn Bunting. She graduated from Northern Ireland's Methodist College in Belfast in 1945 and then studied at Belfast's Queen's College. She emigrated with her family in 1958 to California, and became a naturalized citizen in 1969.
That same year, she began her writing career, and in 1972, her first book, "The Two Giants" was published. In 1976, "One More Flight" won the Golden Kite Medal, and in 1978, "Ghost of Summer" won the Southern California's Council on Literature for Children and Young People's Award for fiction. "Smokey Night" won the American Library Association's Randolph Caldecott Medal in 1995 and "Winter's Coming" was voted one of the 10 Best Books of 1977 by the New York Times.
Bunting is involved in many writer's organizations such as P.E.N., The Authors Guild, the California Writer's Guild and the Society of Children's Book Writers. She has published stories in both Cricket, and Jack and Jill Magazines, and has written over 150 books in various genres such as children's books, contemporary, historic and realistic fiction, poetry, nonfiction and humor.
(Bowker Author Biography)
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