Clarion, 1991
Summary: Eleven-year-old Margaret gets involved in hiding Stuart, a World War II deserter. She also copes with bullies and with her ambivalent feelings toward pacifism, since her brother is fighting in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. The year is 1944.
Level: RL:IL 5-8
Themes:
- pacifism
- bullying
- child abuse
- alcoholism.
- World War 1939 - 1945
Activities
1a. Before you read Stepping on the Cracks, brainstorm information that you, a group, or your whole class know about what civilian life in the U.S. was like during the Second World War. A few general topics you might start with might be: blackouts, civil defense, rationing, war stamps, and victory gardens. Be as SPECIFIC as you can. Make an organized chart of the results. As you read the novel, list specific civilian war information that is utilized within the text. For instance, on page 3 Margaret sees gold stars and blue stars in the windows of soldiers' family homes, and thinks about their meaning. Follow 6 such topics that interest you, writing the information and the page numbers. [Information Skills: search for relevant information & organize, relate to prior knowledge, key words/Thinking Skills: knowledge, comprehension]
1b. When you have finished the novel, choose 3 items from that list. Write one item on top of each of 3 blank pages. Then go over the chart that was made before you began reading, (see 2a.) compare the information, and write down your findings. Now, look over the attached resource list and mark the most likely sources where you could verify each item. (You may add to the list.) Mark them with a 1, 2, or 3 for your 3 items. Check these decisions with your teacher or librarian, and then use these sources to find information that agrees with and adds to that used by Ms. Hahn, or that is contradictory. Write about your findings on each of the 3 pages, listing the sources and pages where you located your findings. [Information Skills: integrating concepts, selecting and locating resources and searching for relevant information/Thinking Skills: application, analysis]
1c. Choose 1 of your pages and review the part or parts of the book where this information is included. If you were to modify Ms. Hahn’s book based on your findings, how would you do it? (Rewrite a part of the book to enrich, extend, or further describe the book's information, or change the part to fit contradictory information. Or describe HOW you would change the book without actually rewriting a part. [Information Skills: application/Thinking Skills: synthesis]
1d. Choose a topic on your chart (see 2a) that WASN'T used in the book. Research this topic as you did your first three, and write a paragraph about what you learned did your first three, and write a paragraph. Now find a logical place in the book where this information could be used. Rewrite or describe HOW you would change the book to include this information. [Information Skills: application/Thinking Skills: synthesis]
2. Research College Park, Maryland. Find some facts about College Park that would change the map found in the book. Choose one that would also give you an opportunity to change an interesting part of Ms. Hahn’s story. Make a photo-copy of the book's map (on page facing page 1) and use a red pen to indicate the change in the map. On the back of this map write the source or sources of your new information and how it would change the map. Then rewrite the part of the book that would be affected or describe what change would be indicated in the book due to this new information. [Information Skills: select, locate, and search for relevant information, apply/Thinking Skills: application, synthesis]
3. Read or re-read Alex Won His War, another 1992-1993 Maine Student Book Award nominee, and take notes on civilian life in the U.S. during the Second World War. Write about some of the topics that are very similar to those used in Ms. Hahn’s book, and some that are very different. Think about possible reasons for the differences: sex of the main character, geographical differences, author's choice, time of story, theme of story, or other reasons. Now write a page or more about some differences and some similarities you found and the reasons you chose that might explain their inclusion or absence. (One thing that might help you might be to imagine taking information from one of the stories and adding it to the other story. Would it work? Make sense? Why or why not?) [Information Skills: select & evaluate, infer, interpret information, application/Thinking Skills: analysis, evaluation]
4. Elizabeth is a leader, and Margaret is a follower. For instance, on page 22, Elizabeth suggests that she and Margaret follow the bullies and find out where their hut is. She plans to get back the boards that they took from her tree house. Margaret is scared and stays behind until Elizabeth calls her a sissy-baby. Then she reluctantly joins Elizabeth. Describe 3 more times when Margaret disagrees, yet goes along with Elizabeth. (Include page numbers.) Find 2 times when Margaret tries to get Elizabeth to change her mind and fails. Describe these with page numbers. Find 1 time when Margaret succeeds in changing Elizabeth's mind. Why do you think it works this time when it didn't the other times? Find justification for this in the words of the author. Use the actual quotes and page numbers in your explanation. [Information Skills: select, interpret, paraphrase/Thinking skills: analysis, evaluation]
Possible sources for factual information
local historical societies
local army or other service unit
almanac
map of College Park, MD.
newspapers, 1944-1945
magazines, 1944-1945
Chronicle of U.S.
The Story of America
National Geographic Picture Atlas
letters and photographs, 1944-1945
artifacts and regalia, 1944-1945
history books about World War II
interviews with local people who experienced World War II
published interviews, such as:
The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two by Studs Terkle, Pantheon 1984. (Especially good for older students.)
letter from Mary Hahn (below - place in vertical file)
World War II novels - location U.S.:
Aaron, Chester. Alex, Who Won His War. Walker & Co., 1991 Nazi espionage agents threaten to kill two helpless women if Alex doesn't help them with their sabotage plans in Connecticut. Time - 1944.
Desertion:
Beatty, Patricia. Charley Skedaddle. William Morrow, 1987. A tough, 12-year-old street gang boy from New York enlists as a drummer boy in the Civil War. His first battle experience repulses and horrifies him. In shock, he deserts, and it is some time before he proves to himself and others that he is not a coward.
Gray, Nigel. The Deserter. Harper & Row, 1977. Four British children find themselves sheltering a deserter who doesn't believe the English Army belongs in Ireland.
Reeder, Carolyn. Shades of Grey. Macmillan, 1989. Will's entire family died during the Civil War, and he is sent to live with his Virginian uncle, a conscientious objector. As he gradually understands the needless suffering that resulted from the war, he also begins to realize that good people may hold opposite views.
For placement in the library's vertical file:
From a speech Mary Hahn made April 9, 1992, upon receiving the Joan G. Sugarman Children's
My editor, James Cross Giblin...said...History can be as recent as your own childhood...Tell your own story, use your memories. That started me thinking about College Park, my home town. I remembered the dirt roads, the trolley tracks to Washington, the back alleys, the steam locomotive thundering past my house down at the end of Guilford Road. I remembered my friend Ann who was always braver than I was, the boys who scared us both, the forbidden woods on the other side of the train tracks, the mixture of poor and wealthy families, my sixth grade teacher. It all came rushing back...radio shows, songs, storybook dolls, the bike I wanted, the tree house Ann and I built only to have it destroyed by the boys.
And in the background of course, the shadow across our childhood World War Two. News reels, newspapers, and Life Magazine brought the war home. I saw children in danger, houses on fire, bombs falling, soldiers, guns, battles. Like every child of the forties, I watched my parents deal with ration books, waited with my mother in long lines in grocery stores, saved scrap, flattened cans, mixed yellow food coloring into the margarine, helped weed the Victory Garden, choked down Spam and fatty stew, worried about my father when he put on his helmet and left the house to make sure the people on our block were observing the blackouts. Saddest of all my memories, though, were the stars in my grandmother's window. In the beginning they were both blue one for my Uncle Eric and one for my Uncle Dudley. Then one fall day in 1944 I came inside from playing and found my father sitting in a chair crying. I was almost six years old and I was scared. I'd never seen my father cry. My mother told me that Uncle Dudley had been killed in the war. We all cried then. I'd seen my uncle just before he left for Europe. He'd come to say goodbye to us. My favorite uncle, my father's favorite brother. He'd carried me around the garden, tossed me in the air, told me to be a good girl while he was gone. I'll see you when the war is over, he'd said.
When the war was over, there were still two stars in my grandmother's window. A blue one for Uncle Eric and a gold one for Uncle Dudley. He died a hero's death in Belgium, my father said. He won the Distinguished Service Cross. I know my father was very proud of his younger brother. But he was also very sad. There must have been times when he wished my uncle had let someone else be brave...
When I began to write Stepping on the Cracks, I decided to make war my story's background. Not just world war but domestic war, violence at home, violence abroad...I wanted to explore different ways of looking at war and destruction. I wanted to say that even the most justified war in history brought with it misery on a scale so huge we still can't comprehend it. I wanted to say war kills people. Not just soldiers but civilians. I wanted to say that a man who refuses to kill is just as brave as one who follows orders. Maybe braver.
As my narrator, I chose Margaret. She and her friend Elizabeth were older than I'd been. I wanted to use my memories but I didn't want to be limited to a six or seven year old's point of view. I set the story in a town like mine. Anyone familiar with College Park, Maryland could find his or her street on the map included in the book...
Of course, I couldn't depend on memory alone to write a book. I had to make sure I had my dates straight. Paul Fussell's Wartime and Studs Terkel's The Good War were invaluable aids. The illustrations in the Time Life books reminded me of how the world looked in 1944. I pored over the Saturday Evening Post covers I'd loved as a child, and included Rockwell's Private Willie Gillis in my story. Most all, I enjoyed listening to music and old radio shows...There were times when I was so deeply immersed in the forties that I'd wake up expecting to hear news from the western front. I truly felt lost in time. Was I 52 years old or was I still 11, running down the alley with Ann, ducking the apples hurled by Toady and his gang?
Except for the relationships between Elizabeth and Margaret, most of the characters and events are fictitious. I knew families like the Smiths, I saw adults ignore them on grounds it wasn't any of their business. I often wonder what happened to those kids. They never stayed in College Park long. They came and went, taking their black eyes and missing teeth with them.
(reprinted with the author's permission)
Prepared by Audrey Conant, Wayne School
