The Great Tulip Trade (Step into Reading)
K-Gr. 2. Give Brust a bouquet of flowers. She takes a complicated topic, the Dutch tulip mania of the 1600s, and makes it into a credible story--for beginning readers! An author's note explains the history on which the story is based; tulips became valued beyond reason, finally plunging in worth and ruining investors. So how did Brust work the facts into a Step into Reading easy reader? Her story focuses on Anna, who lives in Holland in 1636. Anna's father grows the flowers, and he gives his daughter eight different tulips for her birthday, which she plants in a window box. People spy them and want to trade for sturdier items: livestock, furniture, paintings. Reluctantly, Anna trades, but when she is offered gold and diamonds for her father's rarest tulip, she refuses to relinquish the precious gift. Delightful illustrations that have the dimension of collage and the soft edges of digital art add to the accessibility. Pair this with Deborah Noyes'Hana in the Time of the Tulips(2004), a picture book on the subject.Ilene CooperCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to theLibrary Bindingedition.