The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Woodson, Jacqueline

This Is the Rope: A Story from the Great Migration

32 pp. | Penguin/Paulsen | August, 2013 | Trade ISBN 978-0-399-23986-1 $16.99

(2) K-3 Illustrated by James Ransome. The narrator's grandmother finds a rope that she uses as her skipping rope. Later it's also used in other ways (e.g., clothesline), but in each succeeding generation, one little girl uses it as a skipping rope. Woodson's understated but eloquent text gives specific details of one family's experience, while Ransome's rich oil paintings provide historical context.

Reviewer: Kathleen T. Horning | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2013