This Is the Rope
by Jaqueline Woodson
This is the story of how a length of rope is passed on from grandmother to mother to daughter against the backdrop of the Great Migration. The story starts with the grandmother in the South. She moves with her family to Harlem and brings the rope with her.
The story is poetic and beautifully illustrated. My students loved looking at the pictures. However, they do not have a lot of knowledge of the Great Migration so they enjoyed the story more than they garnered the history lesson. I would recommend this book for first grade as a read aloud, unless you are studying the Great Migration, because the historical backdrop is abstract and alluded to which is hard for smaller children to notice.
If you are going to read it in kinder, I would recommend a 3-read cycle. First for enjoyment, second for literal comprehension, and third for abstract messages.
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