Blue By Joyce Moyer Hostetter

Reading Level: 4-7
Genre: Historical Fiction
Awards: IRA Children's Book Award, Parent's Silver Choice Honor, NC Juvenile Literature Award

Ann Fay Honeycutt's father has just left to serve in World War Two.  As Ann Fay's father is leaving he gives Ann Fay a pair of his overalls and tells her that she is the man of the house now and has to take care of her mother and little brother and sisters.  Being the man of the house is no small task and soon grows even larger when the polio epidemic hits the small town of Hickory, North Carolina where Ann Fay and her family lives.  Through news paper articles, Ann Fay keeps a careful eye on the epidemic but soon the epidemic comes knocking on the Honeycutt's door and being the man of the house isn’t the only thing Ann Fay has to worry about.

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3083068/Blue_by_Joyce_Moyer_Hostetter

This book would be great to use when studying North Carolina history.  It could also be tied in to talking about World War Two and the effect of the majority of the male workforce joining the army and going over seas to fight.  Another topic that could be talked about with this book is the friendship between Ann Fay and Imogene and why people were so against their friendship because of their race.  An activity that you could do with this book is have students write newspaper articles about a certain topic and talk about the style of writing used in newspaper articles and the purpose of newspapers.  This activity would be appropriate to use with this book because the newspaper is what Ann Fay relies on to get information about the polio epidemic and the war.