Uncle Jed's Barber Shop

Mitchell, M. (1993). Uncle Jed’s Barbershop. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Brief Annotation: A young girl narrates a story about her beloved Uncle Jed, a barber who travels to his customer’s houses in the segregated south to cut hair. He is scrimping and saving so he can fulfill his dream of opening up his own barber shop. When the narrator becomes ill as a young girl and needs a life-saving surgery, Uncle Jed hands over his hard-earned money to cover the surgery without hesitation, and then begins to save once again. He then experiences the financial hard-ships of the Great Depression, and loses all of his money to a failed bank. Uncle Jed continues to cut his customer’s hair, frequently accepting trades of meals, eggs and vegetables instead of money. Finally, Uncle Jed is able to make his dream come true at the age of 79, shortly before his death.

Genre: Historical fiction

Grade Level: 2-6

Readers who will like this: Children who enjoy or could benefit from stories about perseverance and determination. Children who could learn from a story that touches on the topic of the injustices of segregation.

Response/Rating (1-4): 4. This is a wonderfully uplifting and inspiring story about an optimistic man who has a dream, and most importantly, a big heart.

One question you would ask before a read aloud: What is segregation? What does it mean to persevere?

Reading Strategies Connection: Grand Conversations (Tompkins, 2009). In the Grand Conversations strategy, students will have the chance to journal and/or draw pictures of the big ideas that were presented in the book. Once they have done this, they will meet in small groups to discuss ideas from the book. A whole-class discussion led by the students will follow. Students are allowed to discuss areas of the story that have important meaning to them. The teacher can gently direct the discussion if necessary.
This strategy is perfect to use with this book because the book explores so many rich topics such as the mistreatment of ethnic groups, the Great Depression, perseverance and selflessness.