65. Uncle Jed’s Barbershop, by Margaree King Mitchell

 

65. Uncle Jed’s Barbershop, by Margaree King Mitchell


Mitchell, M.K. (1993). Uncle Jed's barbershop. NY: Simon & Schuster.

Sarah Jean lived in the segregated South of the 1920s, where most people were sharecroppers.  Her family had a few acres of land. Her daddy’s brother, Uncle Jed was a barber, but had to travel all over the county to cut his customers’ hair. He lived for the day when he could open his very own barbershop. He saved and saved but there were always setbacks.  When Sarah Jean was five years old, she got sick and needed an operation.  Uncle Jed’s shop money paid for it. There was another setback when the stock market crashed in 1929 and the bank lost all of Uncle Jed’s money. He never gave up.  He would just begin again. Finally, the joyful day came when Uncle Jed opened his shiny new shop on his 79th birthday.  He twirled a now grown-up Sarah Jean around in the barber chair.

I found a lesson plan that uses the story to teach about banks, saving money and starting a business.  It also touches on the Great Depression and segregation in the south.  The other link is for an ELAR lesson that discusses vocabulary, has discussion questions teacher story sequencing.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/Education/Lessons/pdf/Uncle-Jeds-Barbershop.pdf?la=en

http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/byrnes-literature/ANDERSON.HTML/ANDERSON.HTML

 

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