Retrato do autor
22 Works 1,188 Membros 24 Críticas

About the Author

Mary E. Lyons is the author of many acclaimed and award-winning books that bring to life the people and places of history. Among them are: Letters from a Slave Girl: The Story of Harriet Jacobs; The Poison Place; and Dear Ellen Bee: A Civil War Scrapbook of Two Union Spies. Mary E. Lyons is a mostrar mais former librarian and reading teacher. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, Paul Collinge mostrar menos

Includes the name: Mary E. Lyons

Obras por Mary E. Lyons

Roy Makes a Car (2005) 43 exemplares
The Poison Place (1997) 40 exemplares
Knockabeg: A Famine Tale (2001) 21 exemplares
Keeping Secrets (1995) 21 exemplares

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Nome canónico
Lyons, Mary E.
Data de nascimento
20th c.
Sexo
female
Nacionalidade
USA
Local de nascimento
Georgia, USA
Locais de residência
Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Ocupações
writer
teacher
Organizações
Sweet Briar College
University of Virginia
Virginia Center for the Humanities and Public Policy

Fatal error: Call to undefined function isLitsy() in /var/www/html/inc_magicDB.php on line 425
Mary E. Lyons, a former teacher and librarian, became a full-time writer in 1993. She is the author of nineteen books for young readers published by Scribner, Atheneum, Henry Holt, Houghton Mifflin and Oxford University Press. Born and raised in the American South, she holds dual Irish and US citizenships. She and her husband, Paul, are members of the Blue Ridge Tunnel Foundation and live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Membros

Críticas

Mary Lyons biography of "The Great Hunger" in Ireland during the mid-nineteenth century is a riveting collection of first-hand accounts from the Irish people who experienced this horrific time of disease and starvation. The author chooses to let the Irish people tell their story in their own words. I thought the organization was an interesting way to tell the story, but I felt the author should have included her voice to lend explanations to younger readers to help them understand the more abstract concepts like England's institutionalized racism, tenant farming (lack of land ownership), or England's lack of empathy for Ireland's plight.
The book includes a bibliography but the true sources of information are the original accounts of which the University College in Dublin Ireland granted her access.
Some of the accounts are truly traumatic, like mass graves, mother's carrying dead infants, and the lengths people would go to get a bite of food. The author shares these stories with the reader in the hopes of bringing attention to an underdocumented blight in European history. Over one million people died during the years 1846 to 1852 yet not one known photo exists. I am the granddaughter of Irish immigrants and I appreciate the author's passion for telling this story.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
JSkoros | 2 outras críticas | Apr 2, 2019 |
I really liked this book for many reasons. The big idea of this book is to inform young children about the harsh times Irish people had to face during the potato famine. Although this book is solely informational, it manages to still keep the reader engaged. For example, the author stated “Now over forty million Irish descendants live in the United States. You may be one of them.” By making this statement about Irish people in America personal to the reader, the author is is grabbing the reader’s attention. Children who are Irish will feel more connected to this book because they will realize that it is about their own personal history. This book describes in great detail how potatoes are made and how vital they were for the survival of Irish people in the 1800s. The images are eye-catching and capture the hard times Irish people faced during the famine. There is one sketch of a malnourished girl in Galway that is very powerful and emotional to look at. Since this is a non-fiction book about the grave topic of hunger, I would not recommend this book for younger elementary school students. Both the text and the illustrations depict too heavy of a message for small children. However, this book provides a great opportunity to students in 4th and 5th grade because it allows them to see history from a non-American perspective. Elementary school students usually do not get the chance to learn about Irish history, so this book pushes students to think about tough issues that people had to face in another part of the world. This book is well organized and has clearly labeled sections such as “Potatoes and the Blight”, “Searching for Food”, and “Soup Kitchens”. These categories make it easy for children to refer back to specific sections of the book without having to read it from beginning to end. There are also quotes from Irish people who lived through the famine that raise the emotional impact that this book has on the reader. I would recommend this book to a child who needs to write a non-fiction book report or research paper. This book is sad, but a very interesting read.… (mais)
 
Assinalado
NicoleFrankel | 2 outras críticas | Oct 11, 2016 |
Maybe 3.5 stars. Good for read-aloud - it does swing along with interesting words & syntax. Good for a Tall Tales unit that wants to explore beyond John Henry, Paul Bunyan, Mike Fink....
 
Assinalado
Cheryl_in_CC_NV | 7 outras críticas | Jun 6, 2016 |

Prémios

You May Also Like

Associated Authors

Terry Widener Illustrator
Todd L. W. Doney Cover artist

Estatísticas

Obras
22
Membros
1,188
Popularidade
#21,643
Avaliação
½ 3.7
Críticas
24
ISBN
53
Línguas
1

Tabelas & Gráficos