Jamaica and Brianna

The overall theme of the book is to love what you love and not let the opinions of others change your mind. Both girls let the other girl's opinion of their boots make them feel bad until they sit and talk and make clear their full, true opinion of the situation and they are able to resume their friendship and be happy. It would be good to help teach kids about peer pressure. The illustrations in the book are lovely. The emotional expressions are portrayed with delicate subtlety that is delightful. They could definitely be used in a reading time with additional questions to draw out more critical thinking about the topic of peer pressure.

Like many other books by Juanita Havill, this book takes readers through a story about Jamaica. I really enjoy reading different books about one character, as I am able to see the development and growth she goes through. This particular book tells the story of Jamaica getting new boots, as she did not like wearing her brother's old ones. When her friend Brianna has pretty pink boots, Jamaica decides she cannot buy pink boots, as she feels that Brianna will think she is copying her. When the two talk about it, they find that it was in fact, the exact opposite. The two friends play and enjoy time together in their own cowboy and pink boots. In this book, Jamaica and Brianna were using hand me down boots, which I am no stranger to. I think show more they felt as if they couldn't have anything that was their own. This is a situation that many children are in everyday and many children can see themselves in this story. I would happily add this book to my classroom set! show less

I enjoyed this book since it touches on the topic of how not everyone has money to get new things all the time as well as the illustrations bring the story to life and adds to the written emotions. The story touches on the topic of want versus need with the little girl having to wear her brothers old boots and then ripping a larger hole into the toe to force her mother to buy her new ones. The illustrations add to this through depicting the girl with a thoughtful and happy look on her face while in the background her mother is judging how large the hole is. Kirkus Reviews gave the story’s illustrations a glowing review in 1993 that states, “the scenario is absolutely authentic…O’Brien’s warm, realistic illustrations of this show more vibrant African-American and her lively Asian-American friend are just right.” The story is about how Jamaica has to wear her brother’s old boots until the family can afford to buy her new ones. Jamaica is ashamed of her boy boots and eventually finds a way to get her mom to buy her new ones. Once she gets her new boots, Jamaica’s friend, who is jealous, tells her that the boots are not in style and makes her rethink her choice of boot. The two girls get into a fight and stop talking to each other but eventually come to terms with the fact that sometimes others will have something you want but that eventually the roles will be reversed. The books main idea was that needing something and wanting something are two very different things. show less

This book was a very special book in the Jamaica series. It addresses so many issues that a child could be dealing with in one book. I enjoy how it allows us to thoroughly see and feel how the character feel in each scene. I appreciate the Jamaica series for being so helpful to little girls.

Jamaica doesn't have any boots so she has to wear her brothers old boots and she hates them. Jamaica saw Brianna at the bus stop and thought how pretty her pink boots were. Brianna yelled that she was wearing boy boots which made her feel worse. There was a hole in the boot that Jamaica made worse at school because she wanted new ones. So they went to the shoe store and Jamaica picked out a pair of real cowboy boots that she loved. She was excited to show off her boots the next day but Brianna wasn't happy for her so Jamacia told her that she saw pink boots like Brianna's at the store but didn't get them because they were ugly. They ended up talking it out when they got to school and found out that they were both wearing hammy down show more boots.
This story did a great job at showing that you never know what someone else is going through. The girls apologized to each other and worked everything out by talking and telling each other the truth. I loved the illustrations in this book. show less

Jamaica hates having to wear her brothers old snow boots. When her best friend Brianna makes fun of them at school, Jamaica hates them even more. She feels lucky when the hole in the boots get bigger, and she gets to go to the store to buy a new pair. She chooses a brand new pair of cowboy looking ones and loves them. When she wears them to school Brianna says they aren’t “in”. This makes Jamaica sad so she tells Brianna that her boots are ugly. On Monday at school, Jamaica and Brianna talk about their snow boot and why they said hatful things about each others pair of boots.

I thought this book was very simply and sweet. I think that every young child could understand and relate to this story. The only little bit of multicultural show more aspect in this story was the pictures of Jamaica and her family show they are black, and Brianna seems to be of Asian descend. I think this is a great story and made even better by using different colored children as characters, considering most books use white children. It’s good to use a variety in the classroom, since you will have all different ethnicities in the classroom.

You could have the children draw a picture of a pair of old hand-me-down shoes they once had and then the new pair they got to buy. You could also play a game were the children have to swap shoes and wear them for a while. You should especially talk about hurting peoples feels and how clothes don’t make the person. show less

Jamaica has to wear her brother's old boots, due to the fact her mom doesn't have money to splurge on new snow boots.

Jamaica is given these gray, old, boy snow boots. She goes to school and is embarrassed she is wearing these boots when she sees her friend, Brianna wearing pretty pink ones. Jamaica gets jealous and is mean to Brianna. Jamaica also tears up her gray boots on purpose just so her mom can buy her new ones. Jamaica later learns that Brianna dislikes her pink boots. This is because Jamaica told Brianna her boots were ugly due to jealousy. Jamaica learns that Brianna had hand-me-down boots from her older sister. She then apologizes to Brianna for what she has said.

I can relate to this book, growing up. Having an older show more brother and us going to the same school, I did get a lot of hand-me-downs: school shirts (that were faded) and school sweatshirts. I did get new stuff such as shoes, pants, and shirts due to style and size differences. I did share quite a few things. However, unlike Jamaica, I didn't mind due to the fact I understood the struggles of money. When my sister got into high school, the majority of my cheerleading jackets went to her.

Hand-me-downs are just a part of life when you have other siblings. This book is good for children who might share clothes with their siblings to teach them it is okay amd normal to do so. show less