Title: Hush Harbor: Praying in Secret
Author: Freddi
Williams Evans
Illustrator: Erin Bennett Banks
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Books
Copyright: 2008
Pages: 28
Genre/Category: Historical Fiction
This book caught my eye because of the subject. In Hush
Harbor, slaves gather together at night in secret meetings to worship
together. If they’re caught, they’ll be punished, so young Simmy is in charge
of keeping watch for the night. I really liked that this book discussed faith
and it was an interesting glimpse into history.
The illustrations in this book are painted with watercolors.
The whole book has a fall color scheme – browns, yellows, oranges, and reds for
the most part. The way the illustration painted the people in the book is
really interesting. The characters’ faces are sort of blocky, with over exaggerated
mouths and noses. Just about everything
in the book has an outline in red. It’s hard to make out visible lines in this
book.
I would recommend this book to students of all ages, though
with the dialect, it would probably be more appropriate for second graders or
third graders and above. There is a lot
of African American dialect in the dialogue in this book. This book would be
great to use when talking about slavery, though I suppose the subject of
religion would not necessarily be appropriate in a public school setting. This
would also be the perfect book to discuss dialects and to have students pick
out phrases and words that represent some of the dialect used in the story.
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