Book Review: The Coal Thief by Alane Adams

General Information

Title: The Coal Thief

Author: Alane Adams

Genre: Realistic/Historical Fiction

Publisher: Rodina Press

Date of Publication: 2015

Illustrator: Lauren Gallegos

NOTE: This review is based on an online read-aloud of The Coal Thief from Christian Slater, which can be found here: The Coal Thief - Storyline Online (read-aloud).

Lexile Level & Target Audience

Lexile: N/A; comparable to 2nd-3rd grade level

Age Range: 4-8

Audience: train lovers, boys

Brief Summary

The Coal Thief is a story set in 1920's Pennsylvania; a young boy named Georgie from a rural, low-income family realizes that there is no more coal to warm the house. Shortly after complaining to his mom about the situation (to which she suggests that he put on a coat, indicative of their inability to purchase more coal), Georgie's friend Harley comes up with a master plan. They climb up into the coal car of a train stopped at the tracks near their house, but when Georgie's father (Papa) finds them and rescues Georgie from the moving train, he reprimands them for stealing––something for which Georgie suddenly feels shame. Unable to return the coal, Papa takes Georgie to give the gathered coal away to a poor, elderly widow, and a children's home (orphanage). 

Evaluation: Pros & Cons

Pros:

1. Teachable moment for different lifestyle in 1920s. This book clearly represents a different time in history––that is, when a coal oven/furnace was the main means of heating a house. This setting created by Adams is a wonderful opportunity to engage students in a conversation about the 1920s and how it differs greatly from our current culture.

2. Short, concise sentences. Adams moves the story along at a pace that keeps the attention of young readers. This is something that is often a struggle to find in regard to read-aloud texts for students. If there is too much text to a page, or too many lengthy sentence structures, children quickly lose interest in the story itself because they are so bogged down with the sheer amount of text and description they are attempting to absorb.

Cons:

1. It plays the line of romanticizing stealing. Although Georgie's father clearly scolds Georgie and Harley, and is vividly upset at their actions, the story takes quite a positive turn after that, even concluding with Georgie's father playfully calling him the "little coal thief." Georgie's father's idea to give away the un-returnable coal to those in need is reminiscent of characters like Robin Hood who steal from the rich to help the poor; this book in no means is condoning or encouraging stealing, but I would certainly work to engage students in a conversation about the seriousness of this topic in an effort to prevent them from simply hearing a "happy ending" to Georgie's actions of theft.

2. The illustrations do not contain diversity of race. Because of the small-town rural setting, this element is not necessarily overly concerning; however, it is worth noting that diversity in race is not present in the illustrations of this book.

Literary Elements

Mood: Adams uses multiple short and concise sentences to create a quickly paced feel; this craft aids young readers especially, who can be easily distracted by excessive amounts of detail and description.

Dialogue: This story is told from the third person point of view and uses dialogue constantly throughout the story to move the story's plot along, which works wondrously.

Diction: In relation to the use of dialogue, Adams also incorporates genuine-sounding tone of voice, especially in the case of Harley, whose speech stops and starts matter-of-factly, giving us a clear glimpse of his personality. 

Illustrations

This text contains beautifully crafted images, which take on the look of paintings. Character emotion and landscape/setting are both represented with hushed yet vivid colors and simple yet elegant brush strokes.

Mini-lesson Idea(s)

One of the main aspects of this text is the author's ability to move the story along at an engaging pace through the use of concise sentence structure and dynamic dialogue. Students could recall a true story from their life––one that is quite mundane or rather climactic––and work to convey that story through very short sentences and abbreviated speech between characters. If needed, you could even set a rough limit for the number of words in each sentence (i.e. no more than 5-8 words per sentence).

Cheers!

- Aubrey