(Biography )Book Review/ Discussion- If A Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks" by Faith Ringgold

With my group today we decided to read If A Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks" by Faith Ringgold. During our discussion, we talked about how this book is very well written and it also has some good pictures to keep the students entertained. One point that was brought up is how this can be used to teach literature and history to the students at once. This is an essential practice when you are an elementary teacher, it also is great when you can teach students two things at once. One other thing that we talked about is how the story when it to good details about the era it is talking about; therefore this would be more suitable for older students such as 2nd-4th grade. We believe that this book is also excellent to read to your students because the information is accurate, precise, and very relevant for an elementary student to learn about. This book is on the longer side, it takes about 20 minutes to read which is perfect for a read-a-loud within the classroom whenever you have time. One activity that you could do during this so that your students pay attention is to have them take notes about all of the significant characters that they hear about. This will make sure they are paying attention while also practicing their reading comprehension/note taking skills. 

Book Review:

I believe that If A Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks" by Faith Ringgold is a great book for many different reasons. First of all, the book is very entertaining is full of very good facts that were interesting to learn about. It is also accompanied by interesting pictures that are bright; this helps capture the audiences attention. It is also great because the books help increase attention span relevant to literature and it also has extremely important historical information. This would be super useful to do when you are teaching your students about this time period or era. 

The book starts off with a little African-American girl named Marcie getting onto a bus, but it is not the usual bus. At first, she is freaked out but then she starts to learn about a bunch of different characters whom are on the bus. This is a great way to get information across; having all of the important characters on the bus allows for unlimited creativity. The theme of this book is relevant to the main character Rosa Parks. For example, the story talks about how Rosa was extremely courageous and brave when she refused to give up her seat. It also goes into a decent amount of depth about the evil that she endures. The setting of the book is almost entirely on the bus which was able to be done through a lot of creativity. The character, Marcie, is very curious about the information that she is learning about. This is great for a children's book because it may encourage the students who are reading it to be just as curious about it. They may also see Marcie as a role model about how to handle the new information and how they should be excited to learn about it. The illustration of the book is very good and creative; this will definitely help keep the students engaged with the text. I believe that this book did a great job of being historically accurate while also being an interesting fiction story. 

This is definitely a 5/5 chidlrens book because of how informative and creative it is. I would definitely recommend it to all teachers who are teaching in the elementary age group. Some of the information is relatively sensitive so make sure your students are aware of what they are about to hear / read.