Did You Carry the Flag Today, Charley?

For the past eight years, Did You Carry the Flag Today, Charlie? is the first chapter book I read to my first grade students. I love it for many things; the mischevious curiosity of Charlie, the differences between home life and school, the school as a place where discoveries are made - and possibilities are opened up... My students love it as much as I. We live on the edge of the Appalachian mountains, and many of my students are from rural backgrounds. They can identify with Charlie, and love his amazement at the water coming out of the faucet, and the quantities of colored clay available at school. I recommend this book highly, as a book that keeps wiggly new first graders transfixed on the story. It is a highly successful first read-aloud in my classroom!

My daughter read this in first grade with her advanced reading group. They did some background research which made the book more understandable. For example, the school Charley attended was a free summer kindergarten for poor children. (School started at first grade in that time and place.) The kids also tried washing their hands with homemade soap like Charley had at home. My daughter was thrilled when we moved and she got to read Charley all over agian in second grade!

This was one of my very favorite books years ago when I was in the 1st or 2nd grade. I had completely forgotten about it, and then one day recently stumbled across it at our local library. I was so excited to read it to my 6-year-old son, and he loved it, too! It's a wonderful story, very simple and real, and Caudill evokes the feel of Appalachia so that you imagine it perfectly. I had never been in that part of the country when I read it as a child, but I remember feeling that I knew what it must be like from the descriptions in the book. Sure enough, as an adult now living in that part of the world, the author is dead-on in her depiction of Appalachian life. I must also mention that the few illustrations in the book are just beautiful. I highly recommend this book to everyone, children and adults.

This book kept my interest all the way through to the very end. I highly reccommend it.