HOPE SPRINGS

Walters, E. (2014). Hope Springs. Toronto, Canada: Tundra Books.

Hope Springs is about a boy named Boniface living in an orphanage. One day, he goes out to get water and two village ladies tell him he can't have any water because he doesn't live here. Boniface tries to tell the ladies he does live there, but they refused because they were just from the orphanage. One day, Boniface had his own well because they had finished working on it. Boniface's houseparents tells Boniface that the women turned him away because of fear of drought, not because of meanness. When Boniface remembered that, he decided to build them their own well.

This book is so beautifully written. I could read it over and over again. The illustrations are very life-like and relevant. The portraits are drawn just as little girls and boys in Kenya would look like. The boys are wearing nice dress slacks and the girls are wearing skirts. The facial expressions and bodily features of the children look so very realistic.  Everything is perfect about this book.

The moral of the story is so wonderful. Here you have a young boy, an orphan boy, with no water- and yet he learns to give freely of what was given to him- by helping others in his village that were orginally mean to him. Could we use more of this attitude in schools? Oh yes, yes, we could. Think about how school could change if student's could see past the originally meanness or fear of their classmates and were able to do something great and kind for them instead. This is what the book promotes. Problem-solving, love, kindness, and caring. [AND SO MUCH MORE!].
This book is a MUST have in any classroom. It's so imperative, so wonderful, please read it.

So, you get to end of the book and WALA! Here you find "THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY". Guess what!? This is a real, true story. The book contains pictures of Boniface and his twin brother and his friend Mueni. It also shows other pictures and information about building the well and how people fetch and wait for water. This is such a wonderful book, you can't ask twice if it's high quality literature because it is. When I was first reading this book, I didn't realize it was a true story, but you can almost tell because of all the passion in the writing, only something true could be this wonderful.

Literary Elements:
Tone: Hopeful, Happy, Hard-Working
Character: Pro-active, knowledgable, honest, friendly, willing-to-work, kind, caring to others
Setting: Kenya near the Rolling Hills Residence (orphanage)

Lexile: Not yet rated [new book]