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Tar Beach

Tar Beach

Written & Illustrated Faith Ringgold

Overview: This is a beautiful quilt story about a girl who lies on her "tar beach," her rooftop, with her family. She talks about how her father is a construction worker and looks for new work for lengthy amounts of time. The little girl decides that she is going to fly over the union building, the ice cream factory and a great bridge so that they will be hers forever. I believe that she means this in a figurative manner, in a sort of dream. She takes her little brother with her at the end and they fly with their eyes closed. 
The paintings in this book have an unclean, but beautiful nature to them. This book provokes deep thinking and even has some historical events in it that would be great to explain to a classroom. 2nd graders would enjoy reading this book by themselves.  


-The Green Eyed Reader
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