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| Eye-opening, Interesting, Great Read Beneficial, Encanting |
Book: Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot
by: Margaret Theis Raven
Illustrated by Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen
Happy belated World Read Aloud day everyone, this was my first year of openly being a part of the yearly tradition and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I recently got the chance to start my second clinical experience at Hebron Elementary School with a 5th grade class and had very little time to talk to my teacher about possible class activities, so unfortunately I wasn't able to tie in a little something extra to expand on the learning. Regardless though, the book my teacher helped me pick out, Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot was an eye-opening book which heavily inspired both the class and I. As I read the book and told the class about the challenges the people of West Berlin faced I could see on their faces how shocking all of this was, but also how interesting. I loved the feeling I got every time I finished a page and looked out at them, seeing their interest as they leaned forward, eyes locked on the pages, and heads resting on their hands eager to hear more, eager to know what happened to Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot.
The book talks about a young girl in West Berlin three years after World War II and the fall of Berlin. The Soviet Union, in an attempt to claim all of Berlin after splitting the country among the four Allied nations, blocked off any entrance by ground into Berlin, thus starving it's members and forcing the United States, Britain, and France to give up West Berlin. In a desperate attempt to prevent the spread of communism the three countries setup a system of plane supply drops of food to West Berlin known as the Berlin Airlift. The hope was to being enough to feed all of Berlin (at least to a degree) without using any form of force which risked initiating World War III. One day, the man who would come to be called the chocolate pilot began dropping candy from his plane with little parachutes to the children of Berlin and before long it became a daily tradition of his and he was getting candy from all over America to give to the children of West Berlin. The book talks about a girl Mercedes and how she longs for a piece of candy to give her hope in such a difficult time. It's an extremely powerful piece and I highly recommend it because of how eye opening it is but also because it's a great way to communicate to children the reality of war and how just one piece of candy meant more to these children than gold does to any of us. I can't say enough about how happy I am to have found the book and to have been given the opportunity to educate my class on it's history.
Lexile Reading Score: 850L
Recommended Grade Level: 5
Teaching Suggestions: without a doubt this should be a whole class read aloud.
Before the Reading
- Get them into pairs and have one person in each pair read about the author while the other reads about the illustrator. Then have them explain to each other what they read, while they're doing this pull up an image of Germany during the cold war divided among the four Allied Nations. Explain the importance in knowing about the author and illustrator and then ask them to work for 5 minutes coming up with ideas for what the story could be about. Once they're finished have them share some of their ideas and then educate them on the major details of World War II and read over the prelude to the story.
During the Reading
- Find areas in the book that would be great discussion points and mark them ahead of time. When you reach that point in your read aloud stop and ask the students either what they think about the decision made or what they think will happen (depending on what points you choose). Explain to the students that they should be respectively debating about what they think and so they should be using words like I agree with and I respectively disagree with.
After the Reading
- One key detail in the book is a letter Lt. Halvorsen receives from a boy named Peter Zimmerman who is asking the Chocolate Pilot to please drop candy over his house with a drawing of a map for how to find the candy. In the story the Lt. couldn't find the house based on the drawing and so he simply sent a package to Peter with candy by mail. Have the students write a letter to the Lt. asking for candy to be dropped off at any place they want and have them describe the area as best as they can with words, then with a drawing. When they finish they can look up the location on google maps and see just how easy it would be to find the location using their map and directions.
Great Electronic Resources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmanS-4nc4Y
Video of interview wit Lt. Halverson aka the chocolate pilot, talking about his first interaction with the German children and how he got inspired to start dropping them candy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfqTZ3e8d6Y
Recording of the book being read aloud
Words you may need to define for the class or go over with the class:
- blockade – When one group controls who and what goes into or out of a place by the use of any army or navy
- scold – blame with angry words
- translate – Change from one language into another language
- linger – Go slowly, as if unwilling to leave
- fragile – Easily broken, delicate
- rubble – chunks of stone and cement mainly from demolished buildings
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