The Year of Fire

A timely new edition of a story about a wildfire from beloved children’s book creators Teddy Jam and Ian Wallace.

It’s maple syrup time and an old grandfather tells his granddaughter about the great fire of 1919, when the whole county caught fire and burned for a year. No one knew how it started, but every able-bodied man, woman and child tried to fight the fire. The grandfather and his brother — children at the time — helped fill buckets of water from the creek. Only the snow finally seemed able to smother it. But the next spring they were all amazed to discover that the fire had kept going all winter in the soil, destroying the roots of the trees as it burned.

Now a new forest has grown over the scar, but the grandfather can still see the traces of the fire and show them to his grandchild.

At a time when wildfires are causing increasing devastation, this new edition of a classic children’s book recounts an event that changed the lives of all who experienced it — and brings a perspective of hope in its portrayal of recovery after the fire. It’s a memory that becomes a story to share with future generations.

Key Text Features

illustrations

dialogue

chapters

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.1

Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.6

Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.5

Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.7

Explain how specific aspects of a text's illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story (e.g., create mood, emphasize aspects of a character or setting)