Tag Archives: empathy

The Truth of the Story Makes it Worthwhile

Choosing books for Christmas is always a delightful experience. There are many from which to choose, so when selecting a book I ask myself how many things I might share with the children when we read this book. There needs to be more than the fun, excitement, and joys of the season. This helps me eliminate some and treasure others.

A Christmas TapestryThe Christmas Tapestry
by Patricia Polacco

One of my favorites is Patricia Polacco’s Christmas Tapestry. This story begins with the question that many children and adults both ask, “Why did God…?” Jonathan Weeks, a pastor’s kid, finds himself in Detroit, Michigan, where his father has taken the call to a new church, and asks his dad this age-old question. Who has not asked that question at some point? Yet, before the story ends, Jonathan and his family see how the Lord has woven a tapestry that is beautifully crafted to touch the lives of Jonathan, his family, and others in significant ways.

Lesson #1
God has a plan and we need to trust and walk obediently

When a blizzard hits Detroit, Jonathan and his father discover the church’s sanctuary has been damaged by snow and ice, the car won’t start, and waiting for a bus is bitterly uncomfortable when it is cold and snowing. This combination prompts a trip to town where they find a beautiful tapestry to hang over the damaged wall in the church, and meet an old woman who offers them hot tea. Father and son are shocked to learn that Rachel, the woman, created the tapestry as her chuppah many years earlier as a young bride in Germany. However, the real surprise comes a day later when the plasterer—who arrives to repair the wall— recognizes the tapestry as the one his bride made before they were separated and taken to Nazi concentration camps. Their reunion, so many years later, is the celebration that is well beyond a Christmas joy.

Lesson #2
The horror of the Holocaust

These lessons can be enhanced with additional children’s books. A wonderful story of the wedding chuppah is an integral part of Patricia Polacco’s The Keeping Quilt. The appliques on this quilt are family pieces, and the quilt has been used as the wedding chuppah for generations. Polacco includes this artifact in Mrs. Katz and Tush when Mrs. Katz describes her wedding chuppah. The chuppah has wonderful significance in each of these stories, and is a symbol of the banner of God’s love. Jewish history and customs enter into this story, as well as others. A is for Abraham: A Jewish Family Alphabet by Richard Michelson is a wonderful introductory piece for children to learn of these many special traditions.

The Keeping QuiltThe Keeping Quilt
by Patricia Polacco

Mrs Katz and TushMrs. Katz and Tush
by Patricia Polacco

A is for AbrahamA is for Abraham
by Richard Michelson

The events of the Holocaust are important for children of the 21st century to understand. Some people survived the Holocaust by escaping or by being released at the conclusion of the war. Others did not survive and are remembered today with regrets. There are excellent books that describe this tragic time in history. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry offers an account of a brave girl in Denmark who faces danger to rescue another. Similarly, The Butterfly by Polacco describes the events in France at the same time period, and Shulamith Levey Oppenheim reports these events in Holland in The Lily Cupboard. There were those who were able to leave Europe without being imprisoned there, but faced difficulties elsewhere, as in Rebekkah’s Journey: A World War II Refugee Story by Ann E. Burg. Bold attempts to protect the Jews are told in The Yellow Star: The Legend of King Christian X of Denmark by Carmen Agra Deedy and Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story by Ken Mochizuki. Choose from among these books to help readers of Christmas Tapestry understand the depth of fear and persecution that the Zukors—the old woman and her long-lost husband—faced, and thus the height of their joy when reunited.

Number the StarsNumber the Stars
by Lois Lowry		 The Butterfly
by Patricia Polacco
 The Lily CupboardThe Lily Cupboard
by Shulamith Levey Oppenheim

 Rebekkah's JourneyRebekkah’s Journey
by Ann E. Burg

 The Yellow StarThe Yellow Star
by Carmen Agra Deedy		  Passage to FreedomPassage to Freedom
by Ken Mochizuki

Following the war, there were stories of others like the Zukors who survived. For older readers, share Hiding to Survive: Stories of Jewish Children Rescued from the Holocaust by Maxine B. Rosenberg (out of print) or Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps by Andrea Warren. These tell personal accounts of life changing events. For a similar story appropriate for younger readers, share Don’t Forget by Patricia Lakin (out of print) or Six Million Paper Clips: The Making Of A Children’s Holocaust Memorial by Peter W. Schroeder to help readers grasp the number of lives touched by this event.

Surviving HitlerSurviving Hitler
by Andrea Warren		 Six Million Paper ClipsSix Million Paper Clips
by Peter W. Schroeder

The Zukors immigrated to Detroit from Germany when they were released. Why Detroit? Explore the life of an immigrant with Russel Freedman’s Immigrant Kids. Although the time period of most accounts is earlier, the theme is beneficial to understanding the move to a new culture. The welcome to the USA is beautifully described in Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty by Linda Glaser. The account of this young Jewish author and her sonnet that became the words of welcome is a great addition when examining immigration.

Immigrant KidsImmigrant Kids
by Russell Freedman
 Emma's Poem: The Voices of the Status of LibertyEmma’s Poem
by Linda Glaser

Polacco often will tell her audiences that it is the truth of the story that makes it worthwhile. The Christmas Tapestry, described as a “true story,” includes truths that are so important for our children. It can be read over and over, allowing the reader or listener to be struck with the sovereignty of God who orchestrates tiny details as well as  immense events, and all for His glory. Read and rejoice with Jonathan and the Zukors who see God’s hand weaving a plan to bring joy to us and glory to Him.

Penny Clawson, Ed.D.  Although a resident of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for more than 30 years, Dr.  Clawson’s roots in New York City still can be detected if you listen very carefully. Her unique mixture of metropolitan, suburban, and rural experiences brings a varied perspective on life, Christian education, and the Lord. Penny grew up in New York City, attended college in center city Philadelphia, and then taught in York, Pennsylvania, at the Christian School of York for 15 years before coming to Lancaster in 1983 to begin her ministry at Lancaster Bible College. Penny’s love for the Lord, His word, children’s books, and her students is evident in any venue. 

Mending Broken Windows

Revolution

“…our children shouldn’t have to be afraid. I shouldn’t have to be afraid when they walk out the door.” 1

Last week, my 5 a.m. consciousness struggled to place these newscaster’s words. Somehow, Deborah Wiles’ Revolution, fresh in my mind, projected like a newsreel right into the morning’s story. This news was Ferguson, MO, not Wiles’ Greenwood, MS account. Sadly, I had the same feeling several weeks before.

I had been begun Revolution, a documentary novel of Freedom Summer, 1964.

“The air in Fairchild’s, which always smells like bacon and lettuces and yeasty bread and sawdust and air-conditioning in the summer, was laced with the smell of uncertainty then, and there was a hush from some of the white customers—you could feel it. It was a bristly feeling.” (p. 226)

Wiles has a way of making her readers feel it by placing us in the footsteps of young people. We readers see through their eyes, like fragile windows—smudged, cracked, broken, and mended.

“I asked Daddy the question I most wanted to know the answer to: “What’s going to happen?”

“We’re going to watch, Sunny,” he answered me, “and stick together. Everything will be all right.” (p. 206)

That was when a news report from this summer, July 2014, started up like a movie in my mind. A correspondent was sharing stories of two families sheltering during the escalating conflict in the Gaza Strip.2

In Ashkelon, Israel, 30-40 neighborhood family members hunkered in an underground concrete bunker.

“My kids are very anxious,” [one mother says]. They won’t go home to sleep, or shower, or eat…they’re terrified.” “Things are not OK,” [her 10-year-old son says]. “I’m scared.”

The correspondent asks the boy if he ever thinks that kids in Gaza might feel the same. “My mother told me there were sirens there, too,…and those kids also have to run away.”

In Gaza City, families have no bunker to defend against bombing.

“Sometimes I lie,” [says one father]. “I tell my kids, ‘Those aren’t bombs; they’re fireworks.’ When it’s huge, I try to act carefree so they’ll see me and feel reassured.”

“We feel so scared, ” says one 10-year old. The report continues, “she is angry that Israelis can hide in shelters, while her family and people are killed.” When the correspondent asks the girl if she wants Israeli kids to die too, she responds, “They are like me. They have rights. They shouldn’t die. They should be protected, just like we should be protected.”

In an interview with teachingbooks.net, Wiles was asked why she chose to write about Freedom Summer:

I wanted to show the larger arc of our nation’s history, juxtaposed against an individual’s smaller arc. History is made by individuals, one moment at a time. By experiencing Sunny’s walk through it [in Revolution]…, readers see that, choice by choice, they craft a life.3

Wiles has crafted a masterpiece. The angst of youth amidst a rapidly changing, chaotic period colors it. Although poignant photographs document the time — the Beatles, soldiers in South Vietnam, Willie Mays, Freedom Houses — in black and white, this tale’s young heroes, both black and white, see in all shades of gray as they search for understanding and meaning-making. Notably, each chapter’s beginning page is vertically edged with a scale of grays ranging from black to white extremes, reminiscent of a test print pattern. Though subtle, readers see what uncertainty looks like.

Events escalate toward the day black communities line up to claim their voting rights through registration. Standing by their side is an army of college-age volunteers from the North and the West. Bob Moses, the quiet son of a Harlem janitor, had organized this massive group. “They won’t pay attention to us if we die…but bring kids here from the North, from the West…and people will pay attention. And, most important we need their help. We need to work together, black and white together.” (p. 70) Wiles’ young main characters are coming of age, seeking to identify with the fire, the courage and reason just a few years more might yield.

Seeing in black and white is not a youngster’s propensity, so as this novel unfolds, we feel the deep struggle, and marvel at the choice that ultimately places a dying black boy in the care of a broken-hearted white girl. She desperately petitions a deaf-eared physician: “I am covered in his blood and nothing has happened to me!” Suddenly, all gray is punctuated with red. Understanding has dawned. The depth of her empathy, of our reader-empathy, is palpable.

“Whose side are we on?” That was the other question I needed to ask.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Daddy said. “We’ll keep talking. Right now, I need to get you to Meemaw’s…It will be like old times,” Daddy said.

“I didn’t like the old times,” I answered. (p. 206)

That was early in Wiles’ Revolution.

“I’m ready for this situation to be over but I don’t want to go back to the old normal; I want to go back to a new normal,” says Ken Cieslak. He says “the new normal” means caring about what is happening to everyone in St. Louis County, not just the neighbors on your block or who went to your high school. He says the old normal was isolation. The new normal they’re hoping for is…to laugh, learn, listen and come to know each other.4

That was last week in Ferguson. A hope for things yet unseen; an arc of history, mending broken windows.

 

References
1 http://www.npr.org/2014/11/27/366956579/damaged-businesses-vow-ferguson-will-rebound-from-violence
2 http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/07/09/330183767/on-opposite-sides-of-israeli-gaza-border-feeling-the-same-fears
3 http://www.slj.com/2014/06/standards/curriculum-connections/revolution-a-conversation-with-deborah-wiles/#_
4 http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/11/24/366308090/ferguson-forward-churchgoers-seek-a-new-normal