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Words On Fire

   Summary of Book: Words On Fire was written by Jennifer Nielsen and is the recipient of the Bluebonnet Award. In this story we follow 12-year old Audra who lives in recently occupied Lithuania in 1893. Lithuania has been occupied by the Russians that want to cut out all aspects of Lithuania life style and replace it with Russian ways only. This includes the destruction of all books and history of Lithuania. Audra's parents are apart of the resistance and are book smugglers. When they get arrested, Audra goes and lives with an old lady named Milda who also works underground. Audra decides that she is going to pick up the torch that her parents left in order to preserve her countries history and also to try and save her parents. In the end, we see Audra reunited with her parents and the book ban has been lifted from Lithuania.  

Why you would/would not use this book in your classroom? I would use this book in my classroom because this story has a very interesting main idea that is not really promoted nowadays. With more and more of our life going online, the push and interest in reading physical books has declined. I think reading this book and the fight over keeping these books alive and safe would be a really good thing to incorporate in my classroom. 

Appropriate age group for this book: 8-12 years. 

Ideas for unit of study to include this book or how you might use this book in the classroom: I would use this book in my classroom by having my students read it and then write a report discussing and comparing how the characters in this story so vehemently protected these books and whether or not that would happen in todays world. 


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