Thursday, September 3, 2015

The Matchbox Diary (Paul Fleischman)

Beautiful story! We used this as an introduction to an All About Me project where students are given a paper bag and asked to bring five items. The five items are something will give us information about that person. The students were totally taken by the beautiful pictures, the stories of life long ago, and the unique things that the Grandpa put in the match boxes.

Bagram Ibatoulline also illustrated The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. He does some wonderful work!



"Pick whatever you like most. Then I’ll tell you its story." 
When a little girl visits her great-grandfather at his curio-filled home, she chooses an unusual object to learn about: an old cigar box. What she finds inside surprises her: a collection of matchboxes making up her great-grandfather’s diary, harboring objects she can hold in her hand, each one evoking a memory. Together they tell of his journey from Italy to a new country, before he could read and write — the olive pit his mother gave him to suck on when there wasn’t enough food; a bottle cap he saw on his way to the boat; a ticket still retaining the thrill of his first baseball game. With a narrative entirely in dialogue, Paul Fleischman makes immediate the two characters’ foray into the past. With warmth and an uncanny eye for detail, Bagram Ibatoulline gives expressive life to their journey through time — and toward each other.

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