Daisy Turner was a real little girl in the 1880's and this book depicts a true story in her life. She struggles with her identity as a little girl of color who is trying to be forced to do something that she isn't very comfortable with by her teacher and parents. She ends up speaking her mind and is commended for it. ( )

Daisy and the Doll is a wonderful addition to your class libray. This book is about a little girl, Daisy, who is an 8-year old African American. She is the daughter of a former slave. She has to proticipate in a school competition to where they each have to have a doll from a different country and recite a poem about the nationality. The teacher hands her a rag doll "with a coal black face" as everyone giggles. She took the doll home and told her father what was expected of her. He told her even though the poem offended her to just memorize it. Even though we do not know what the poem is actually saying Daisy says, "I had never really noticed the color of my skin. It was as if Miss Clark's poem had opened my eyes for the first time." When Daisy got to the stage and was trying to recite the poem it was if she couldn't. She began to deliver a prize-winning poem that came from the heart. I think this is a wonderful book for children to read and know that it ok to be a differnt color and it should not be something that is made fun of or something that causes you to treat people bad.

An extension of this book would be to journal about how you should treat someone of different color or you could just have a class discussion on the different cultures and that everyone is equally made.