Colin Powell Book

Gandhi by Philip Wilkinson

This book is an autobiography of the famous Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The book retells Gandhi's life through four key events of his life; his early years, Gandhi as a student and lawyer, his return to India and his struggle for freedom. Gandhi was the youngest son of a rich prime minister, who was born in India. The book begins with events that happened in India which at the time were ruled by the British, but it ends with Gandhi becoming a world famous leader who steers his country towards independence. The book goes on to informing readers that Gandhi had to go through many obstacles in order to achieve his aspirations. Gandhi's achievement caused many celebrations in India and are still never forgotten in India and other countries.

I would recommend this book to key stage 2 readers. I believe it is an excellent informative book for students to learn the history behind India and an enjoyable way to learn about the iconic role model that is Gandhi. Each page of the book consists of real life photographs of Gandhi, from when he was a young boy to his last few years. As well as this, the book contains photographs and maps of India and South Africa, alongside famous Indian paintings. These all allow students to really capture the stories and adventures of Gandhi, and have a vivid image of what life in India was like at that time. Each page also contains a time line of Gandhi's life, which informs students in short sentences how his life was as the years went on.

This book has great cross curricular link and can be used in multiple lessons, such as Art, Geography, History, Religious Education and Literacy. The paintings and pictures included in the book, have a short summary of what the images show and what the paintings represents. Students can use this to create their own paintings of religious or cultural celebrations they experience. More over the book include famous dates, and information on why Hindus in India perform certain actions or celebrations, which can be used within RE lessons. Children can use this information to explain and describe what they perform in their religions, and can tell the class what religion means to each of them. The book is full of key historic information which includes important dates which is shown clearly in a timeline. Students can look at this timeline as an example to create their own timeline of their life. The maps included in the book are useful in Geography lessons, as the teacher can teach the class how to read maps and can show them, what countries are near each other. They can then recreate this map or create their own map with colours to make it brighter and easier to read. Lastly the book can be used in English as children can write their own biography of their life. They can also retell the story of Gandhi by acting out his life in groups which the teacher can use to assess their understanding of higher level books.

Overall I think this is a brilliant book with great cross curricular link. This book would be very useful in a classroom setting.