Gleam and Glow

By Eve Bunting and Peter Sylvada

Inspired by real events, master storyteller Eve Bunting recounts the harrowing yet hopeful story of a family, a war--and a dazzling discovery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Aug 1, 2005
• ISBN: 9780547769301

Eve Bunting

Eve Bunting was the beloved, award-winning author of more than two hundred and fifty books for young people, including the Caldecott Medal-winning Smoky Night, illustrated by David Diaz, The Wall, Fly Away Home, and Train to Somewhere.

Book preview

title page

Contents

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Title Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Copyright

Dedication

Gleam and Glow

A Note from the Author

About the Author

About the Illustrator

Special thanks to James B. Stewart, assistant headmaster at The Gillispie School in La Jolla, California, and to Allyn Johnston—E. B.

Text copyright © 2001 by Eve Bunting

Illustrations copyright © 2001 by Peter Sylvada

All rights reserved. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Harcourt Children’s Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2001.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

Reviews for Gleam and Glow

[jennybeast · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really wonderful book about war -- about impending war, fleeing war, spending time in camps and returning. Beautiful, hopeful, inexpressibly sad, and appropriate even for very young readers. Inspiring story for older readers, too, and I really like how Bunting manages to keep it nonspecific to a particular war or a particular place.

[engpunk77 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was delighted, as I so often am by Eve Bunting, to find that this was not a book about fish, but about a family who is needing to escape their homeland. The father joins an underground resistance group, and the rest of the family flees. They live in a refugee camp for some time and finally return to the find a "skeleton" of what used to be their home. The fish are a symbol of hope and survival, and this novel is an excellent introduction to symbolism, as the symbolism is more explicit than most. The Afterward gives details about how the story is inspired by true events, a conflict in Bosnia in the 90's, but it's not at all specific to a time or place in text.

[rebeccamichelet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A young boy tells the story of the events that took place after his father left to fight in a war. One day a man who had two fish came by and said he could no longer carry them, so he gave them to the boy and his sister. Soon after, the family had to leave their home because the war was getting closer. The boy then decided to put the fish into the pond by their house and wished them luck. Along with his mother and sister, the boy traveled to the camp where they will be staying during the war. Along their journey the boy and his family asked if anyone knew his father, who finds them after they stayed at the camp for some time. When they finally make it back home; their home was destroyed, but they find the pond full of fish.

[potomaclibrary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gleam and Glow is a picture book for elementary school aged children based on a true story. A family was forced to flee with only a few belongings because of their country's civil war. They were unable to bring their two goldfish, Gleam and Glow, so they set them loose in a lake next to their house. What they find when they return home is magical. A note at the end of the book tells the true story behind this beautiful and touching work of historical fiction. LBS 5/10

[bekstrom_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an example of historical fiction which deals with families during the Boznian War. This is a imaginative tale of the past that reflects historic facts but has incorporated in a fictional plot. There is a lot of historical infomration in the story, but we don't know the specifics about the family. The story about the fish surviving is believed to be a true part of this villages life. I would use this book in an intermediate classroom. The type of media used is oil paints because they are opaque and it appears as though it was applied with a palette or knife which makes it look thick. The colors are not precise and are sometimes blended.