Winter 2006 Review:

        The book The Truth About Sparrows is about a 12 year old girl named Sadie Wynn who lives Missouri with her mother, father, brothers and sisters.  Sadie liked her life in Missouri.  She does not want a new one.  Her old one suited her just fine but, since her father could not make a living in Missouri during the drought, Sadie has to leave her beloved home for this strange place where even children clean shrimp at canneries to help make ends meet and where people are rude to her disabled father.  Also, Sadie does not to leave because she does not want to leave her best friend, Wilma.  Wilma's family was moving in with a family in California.  When trouble comes to Sadie in this strange new place, it is the kindness of her new neighbors that helps her family get through and no one helps more than Dollie, a girl who Sadie meets in her new neighborhood. 

        I liked the book The Truth About Sparrows because it really describes a time when living was hard because of the drought and all of the challenges and changes people had to deal with.  I thought the characters in the book were very interesting.  They each had a very special quality.  Sadie's father would never give up and did not like to have any help.   Sadie's mother never stopped worrying about her family even while she was pregnant.  Sadie just wanted to help out her family by working hard and raising money so they could move back to Missouri.  I think that middle school students would like to read this book because it teaches children that they should help out like Sadie did raising money so her family could move back home. 

        Some of the main problems in the book first started out when Sadie's father could no longer find work because of the drought.  Another problem in the story was when a huge hurricane hit Sadie's new neighborhood, flooding it.  The worst problem in the story was probably when Sadie, her mother, and Dollie were out  gathering pecans at a river and Sadie's mother started to give birth to the baby.  With nobody around, Sadie and Dollie had to deliver the baby themselves.  When they all took the baby to the doctor, he said that the baby was not very healthy and could die.  But in the end, the baby turned out to be very healthy and would live a long life and all the other problems in the book resolved themselves.  

~ Alyssa Clark, grade 5, George Washington Intermediate School