How Many Days to America?

"It was nice in our village. Till the night in October when the soldiers came.

My mother hid my little sister and me under the bed. When I peered out I could see my mother's feet in their black slippers and the great, muddy boots of the soldiers.

When they were gone my father said: "We must leave right now."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because we do not think the way they think, my son. Hurry!"
He would not let us take anything but a change of clothes.
My mother cried. "Leave all my things? My chair, where I sat to nurse our children? The bedcover that my mother made, every stitch by hand?"
"Nothing," my father said. "Just money to buy our way to America.""

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Eve Bunting

Bunting has written more than 250 books in her career; in addition to numerous picture books, she writes fiction and non-fiction for for children, young adults and adults.  While her topics are varied it has always been her goal to write "stories for little children that make them think." Many of her children's books deal with the challenges and joys of immigrants coming to the United States.

Beth Peck

Peck has illustrated more than a dozen children's books, as well as many of Truman Capote's short stories including A Christmas Memory. She also offers art classes for children and adults.

Synopsis

Refugees flee from a Caribbean island on to America on a dangerous boat trip. They arrive on a special day -- "the coming-to-America-day" of Thanksgiving.

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Relevance

Immigration of refugees is a significant concern around the world: according to the UN Refugee Agency 79.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes in 2020 with 26 million designated as refugees -- half are under the age of 18 -- fleeing conflict or persecution in their home country.  While How Many Days to America? is the story of the Carribbean boat people of the 1980s, the narrative and illustrations are an age-appropriate introduction to the current global refugee crisis.

Learning Connections

• How To Talk to Kids About Refugees, World Vision
  
• The Journey of a Refugee, Commonsense Education
• 8 Educational Resources to Better Understand the Refugee Crisis, Amnesty International
• 47 Lessons: Topic Immigration, Teaching Tolerance
• A Teacher's Guide to Books by Eve Bunting, Houghton Mifflin

Middle readers, Picture Book, 30 pages. Refugees flee from a Caribbean island fleeing to America arrive on a special day -- "the coming-to-America-day" of Thanksgiving.