Overview / 简介: |
Jim Murphy's Newbery Honor Book available for the first time in paperback.
"Vivid firsthand descriptions by persons who lived through the 1871 Chicago fire are woven into a gripping account... Absorbing and riveting reading." The Horn Book, starred review
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From Organization / 国外机构评价: |
| Grade 5-12-Jim Murphy's primary source-based account (Scholastic, 1995) of the October 1871 conflagration that virtually wiped Chicago from the map is fully voiced by Taylor Mali. Weaving together technical details with firefighters', journalists', and ordinary citizens' accounts of their personal physical and emotional traumas as they unfolded across the 24 hours of the fire, this version of the long-mythologized event carefully repairs earlier historians' class- and gender-biased reports. Modern listeners will not be surprised to hear that some men fled and some women hauled traditionally man-sized loads in the face of the flames, but they will be fascinated by how very modern some of the responses to the disaster seem: the mayor of Chicago, for instance, called for help-and received it-from fire departments as far away as Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Murphy carefully explains how specific mistakes led to the fire becoming so quickly out of control, as well as how political precepts of the era worked to keep these facts from public view. This is excellent social history as well as suspenseful storytelling. The diversity and multitude of personal accounts is presented in both text and voice so that there is no sense of frustration in the changes of viewpoints, but rather a better appreciation of the event as a dynamic experience from which we still have much to learn.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
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Foreign Customer Review / 国外客户评价: |
| This non-fiction historical book for children is the opposite of dry and boring. Murphy brings alive the excitement and terror of Chicago's Great Fire by incorporating dialogue, first-hand accounts, drawings, engravings, and newspaper reports. My ten year old son could not put this book down (and he usually reads only fiction). In the skilled writing of Jim Murphy, The Great Fire of Chicago is at once the story of a city and the story of very different people in that city reacting to sudden disastor. Maps and enticing chapter titles ("3.'The Dogs of Hell Were Upon the Housetops'") lead the reader into the story and I, for one, did not emerge from the book until I reached the end.
*The Great Fire* is an excellent introduction to reading history, as well as being a really good read. My only quandary is this: which of Murphy's books shall I order now? My ten year can't wait to consume the next one.
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About the Author / 作者介绍: |
| Jim Murphy began his career in children's books as an editor, but managed to escape to become a writer, entering a life of personal and creative happiness and enduring financial uncertainty. He's convinced that the latter keeps him coming back to his computer to write every day and feels that a sense of impending doom is the doorway to creativity. He has never counted the number of books he's published (feeling the time and energy is better spent doing research and writing) but guesses that he has over thirty books to his credit. Jim's work has been honored with numerous awards, including two American Llibrary Association Newbery Honor Book Awards, an ALA Robert F. Sibert Award and Sibert Honor Book Award, three National Council of Teachers of English Orbis Pictus Awards, a Boston Globe/Horn Book Award and a BG/HB Honor Book Award, two SCBWI Golden Kite Awards, and been a finalist for the National Book Award. Recently, he was given the ALA Margaret A. Edwards Award for "his significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature."
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