Sparrow Jack

Gerstein, M. (2003). Sparrow Jack. Illustrated by Mordicai Gersten. Canada: Douglas & McIntyre Inc.

Brief Annotation: John Bardsley grew up in England, and was always fascinated by sparrows, which happened to be drawn to him as well. John moved to Philadelphia and found they had a problem with inchworms. He decided to go back to England and transport 1000 sparrows to Philadelphia to take care of the inchworm infestation. His plan worked!

Genre: Historical Fiction

Grade Level: Pre-K to Grade 4

Readers who will like this: Children who have a love for non-fiction books will be very interested in this book.

Response/Rating (1-4): I would give this book a rating of 4. The author has done a wonderful job of incorporating the origin of sparrows into America in this picturebook format. It would be an easy book to add to a science lesson.
One question you would ask before a read aloud: Do you think all of the birds in America have always been here? If not, were do you think they came from?

Reading Strategies Connection: Exclusion Brainstorming (Tompkins pg. 35). Exclusion brainstorming is a prereading activity to activate students’ background knowledge and expand their understanding about a topic prior to reading. The teacher prepares a word list to identify words related to a book or text the students will be reading. Be sure to include a few words that do not fit into the topic on the list as well. The teacher will provide the list to the students, whether it be on a chalkboard, overhead, or make a copy for each student. Read the list of words with the students then in either a small group or as a whole class, students will decide which words they think will be related to the text and which ones are not. The students should draw circles around the words they will not be related. Learn about the topic or book by reading it, and notice if any of the words from the brainstorm exercise as found in the text. When the student is done reading, they can check the list and make any corrections they found based on the reading. At this time, students will put a check mark next to the words that are related, and cross out those that are unrelated, whether the words were initially circled or not.