Children's Literature - Brenda Seabrooke's Teaching Guides

Brenda Seabrooke's Teaching Guides

The Haunting at Stratton Falls
By Brenda Seabrooke

"A thoroughly satisfying ghost story with just the right amounts of scariness, suspense, and danger to keep even a reluctant reader interested...Absorbing and entertaining." - Kirkus

"This is a classic spine-tingling ghost story, offering just enough drama and suspense for a creepy late-night read without being too scary." - BCCB

"...fans of history and mystery will enjoy the novel's diverse characters, well-paced suspense, period detail, and descriptive, expressive prose." - Booklist

Dutton Books
Grades 5 up $15.99
ISBN:0-525-46389-5

THE ORIGINS OF THIS BOOK

Three things happened to channel my creative energy into The Haunting At Stratton Falls. First, when I was cleaning out my closet (a rare event), a plastic bag fell on my head. It contained a red velvet dress I'd had when I was growing up. I'd forgotten the dress. Second, we discovered a pair of footprints that appeared on the slate stepping stone to our house in West Virginia when the stone was wet..Third, I visited a neighbor in my home town and told her I remembered her coming over to our house and in our kitchen packing a scrapbook in a box to send to her husband on a ship in the Pacific Ocean in 1944 during World War II when I was four. She told me that every man on the ship wanted to look at the scrapbook, to touch the pages of pictures and mementos from home and some of them cried. She showed me the scrapbook and with reverence I turned the pages of that time capsule of American small-town life and its hidden treasures: I found a note from my father who died in 1963. The dress, the wet footprints, and the scrapbook are all in the story of Abby who moves with her mother from Jacksonville, Florida to upstate New York after her father is missing in action in Europe in the cold winter of 1944.

THEMES:

You should not let name-calling propel you into doing things that you know are not right for you.

You should try to think ahead and consider the consequences.

It is more fun to be friends than enemies.

You can stand up for yourself

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES

SOCIAL STUDIES

How were the Civil War and World War II similar? How were they different? Find out which countries were fighting on each side in these wars and mark opposing sides on a map.

How did the war affect Abby's life? Chad's?

Abby spent $3 on Christmas presents for her family. How much would the presents cost today?

Make a scrapbook of your life and town as Abby did.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Find people in your family or community who remember World War II and ask them to tell you about it. Write their stories and collect them in a booklet in the class. If your town has a museum, perhaps you could present the booklet to the museum.

What were Abby's fears in the beginning of the book? Did they change? How did she deal with them?

Choose a chapter and write the same events from the point of view of another character, Chad, Nancy, one of the twins, or McNab. How does this make the chapter different from the original?

Pick the scariest scene in the book and describe how the setting, characters, and actions enhance the mood.

QUOTES TO QUESTION

"There are almost always at least two ways of looking at something, Abby. Go over the information that you have and look for ways to change things." p.5

Why did people have to fight wars anyway? P.10

"You broke my dream of snow." p.19

Aunt Noreen's windows wouldn't guide any enemy bombers. p. 24

She was left with twelve cents to spend on Chad. It was more than he deserved. p.56

"No fair, three against one, no fair." p. 71

It (the water) felt warm to Abby but she had learned that she couldn't trust warmth in this treacherous place. p.126

Falling through the ice was a lot worse than being called scaredy-cat. p.136

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