Isley-A+Curse+as+Dark+as+Gold+review

__APA Citation __ Bunce, E. (2010). //A curse as dark as gold.// New York: Scholastic Paperbacks. __Award__ Morris Award-2009 __Summary __ //A Curse as Dark as Gold, // winner of the William C. Morris Debut Award, is a Rumplestiltskin story with many twists and turns set in the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Charlotte Miller is left in charge of the family mill when her father dies. Charlotte has always staunchly denied any notions of a curse prevailing over the mill, but when the list of unfortunate events surrounding their business continues to mount, she can no longer deny the possibility of some supernatural cause for their troubles. When Jack Spinner seems to have the only solution to save the dying mill from its industrialized competition, Charlotte is willing to pay any price to save her beloved family business. When Jack Spinner’s demands a price too high for Charlotte to pay, she must solve the mystery of the mill’s curse or sacrifice everything. __Critique __ This book started out very slowly. I felt like I was trudging through the first half of it, but once it picked up speed, I truly enjoyed it. The author’s version of the Rumplestiltskin story was very interesting. I always thought of Rumplestiltskin as a children’s fairy tale, but in my opinion, this version would be more powerful for older young adults or adults because of the emotions it evokes. __Curriculum Connection __ Kentucky Core Academic Standards-Middle School-Reading Standards for Literature-RL-8.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text. Kentucky Core Content for Social Studies – Middle School-History: SS-07-5.1.1 Students will use a variety of tools (e.g. primary and secondary sources) to describe and explain historical events and conditions and to analyze the perspectives of different individuals and groups (e.g., gender, race, region, ethnic group, age, economic status, religion, political group) in early civilizations prior to 1500 A.D.
 * //__A Curse as Dark as Gold __//**

*Since this story is set during the early stages of the industrial revolution, students can make connections between literature and history by discussing the impact that the industrial revolution had on merchants who made their crafts by hand.

__Genre __

Speculative Fiction-Fairy Tale

__Classroom Activity __

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">I think that Imagination Recreation: Deepening Understanding Through Creativity would be a good classroom activity to use with this book. Because this text can be dense and hard to get through in parts, I think that students could interpret and comprehend the text more effectively if they visualize what they are reading as they read. Students could work in groups to make storyboards depicting the plot of the book and then present them to the class. After storyboards are presented, the class could discuss what they think the theme of the book would be and how that theme developed throughout the events of the plot. Students could also discuss how the main characters as the students featured them in their storyboards advanced the plot through their actions and their interaction with the setting.