Smoky Nights

Smoky Nights

Author: Eve Bunting

Genre: Fiction

Grade Level: Grades 2-6

Year Published: 1994

Summary

This is a book about a mother and son, Daniel, who are witnessing rioting and violence on their street. They watch the rioting for a while, and then they go to bed. The boy is woken up by his mother a little later, because there is a fire in their building from all the rioting. The boy is distraught because he cannot find his cat. They go to a shelter with all their neighbors, and their other neighbor, Mrs. Kim, who they do not associate with, is also missing her cat. Eventually, a firefighter brings the two cats to their owners, and the mother and Mrs. Kim realize that they do not even know each other and that they should be friends. 

About the Author

Eve Bunting was born in Northern Ireland, and moved to the United States in 1958. She currently has three children and four grandchildren! She first dabbled into writing when she took a college course, a creative writing class. Her first published story was The Two Giants. She likes to write about just about anything, and has written picture books, novels, and a few nonfiction books. She writes about tough issues, including racial issues, death, and even war.  She currently resides in Pasadena, California with her husband, where her hobbies are reading and hitting the golf course.  

Source:http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/contributor/eve-bunting

How to Use it

The main idea of this book is to open the eyes of children to some conditions that other children have to live in, and what they have to witness every day. Another main idea is that if you do not know someone, you should not dislike them. Everyone has the possibility of being a great friend if you would only get to know them. 

Pre-Reading: Discuss the setting of the book with the students. Explain what a riot is and why some people do it. Explain that while this is not a good thing at all, it can happen anywhere, and some children in the world see it every day right outside their houses.

Post-Reading: This would be a great book for students to respond to with writing. They could write a poem based on the book, or just do an entry in a Reader's Response journal. In addition, this book could kick off a discussion of diversity.

What do I Think?

I don't know that I would use this book with my first graders, but I think that it is an excellent book! It addresses diversity and some tough issues that go along with it. It could also be used to teach vocabulary. This is an excellent book to enrich a social studies curriculum.