This Caldecott award winning book has exquisite, realistic, yet cartooned illustrations by Bryan Collier. The story is about a slave who holds stronger meaning to a simple pile of dirt and pot. It goes through the process of Dave making a single elaborate pot, and it ends with his poem etched into every pot that he makes. At the back of this picture book there are some examples of Dave's poems left on pots. This story is great because it is based off of a true story. I think it would be great to use when talking about slavery because it provides a different perspective of African American's lives during this time. Dave the potter is a slave to celebrate, and some of his pottery remains today. I think this story would be great to use in a young grade's Social Studies lesson. I also think this book would be great to use for a Language Arts/ poetry lesson. It would be neat to have students work with clay and create pots and poems together just like Dave did. I took a ceramics class, so I know how difficult using a wheel is. Therefore, it would be neat to show my students the work I did (and worked really hard on) compared to the beautiful work Dave the potter did. Students could make clay pots with their hands and either write their own poems to go into the pots, or etch their own poems into the pots (depending on the students' age).
The following is a link from The New York Times on more information about the real-life Dave: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/books/review/Horwitz-t.html?_r=0 This could be used for the teacher to have background information to tell the students about Dave, or if students are older it could be used for students to read on their own.
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