The eye-catching illustrations and the beautiful use of language makes this book a 'must have' for every classroom in America.

This story is about a young girl named Jolie who lived during the Civil Rights Era. Her town's battle to educate their children is a touching story that emphasizes the value of education.

For teachers, this book presents a social studies lesson about why education was so important to Jolie's town and how the experience connects to the educational opportunities students have today.

This book is a very valuable resource for all grades.

I orginally purchased this book for my Mom who is a real huge Elvis Presley fan. She was delighted to add this book to her evergrowing collection of Elvis thins. One day, while listening to an Elvis CD - my four year old started asking questions about Elvis. Talk about coincidence! We pulled out the book and Grandma read the story based on Elvis's beginnings. She had tears in her eyes remembering how Elvis came from nothing and rose to such awesomeness. My four year old loved the book too. A great gift for an Elvis fan or for reading and teaching a young child about his life. Nicely written for children to understand and beatuifully illustrated. A must have!!!

Tree of Hope is a book about a girl named Florrie who grew up during the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a time when a lot of people were poor and many people lost the jobs they had. In the story Florrie's father once was an actor at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, New York. Now that the Depression has hit Florrie's father is without a job because people don't have money to go see the shows. The only thing her father has to remember about the good times at the theatre is a tree. In the book it is called The Tree of Hope. Her father tells her about the tree and then they wish on it, they wished times went back to the way they were.

Then a director Orson Welles plans to do a play at the Lafayette. Florrie thinks this has happened because of her and her father's wish. The only thing about it is that the play is MacBeth; MacBeth is a play about white people. People who knew that Florrie's father was auditioning for the play would say, "Shakespeare's a white man, we oughta only be doin' written 'bout us. Them people (the white director's) at the Lafayette've come to Harlem just to laugh at us!" This statement seemed to get to Florrie's father but he said, "There will be plays written about us. This is Harlem's MacBeth-you'll see." To find out what else happens you will have to read the book.

The author beautifully brings to life Marie and Monsieur Degas. My five-year-old daughter especially liked the illustrations, which are done in a Degas-like style. This book will make you want to run out to the museum to see the Degas sculpture in person. My daughter liked the book even better than Degas and the Little Dancer, a similar book by Laurence Anholt which I believe takes a few more liberties with the facts but which we also liked. The Anholt book, unlike the Littlesugar book, has reproductions of several Degas works, which were a very nice touch.

I truly enjoyed this book. The books illustrations were great.I have read many books on Degas and this was one of the best.I would recommend it to any one .