Anna's Prayer by Karl Beckstrand

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the biography Ida's Witness by Karl Beckstrand and the different ways in which you can use it in your classroom.  Ida's Witness, if you recall, is about Karl Beckstrand's great-grandmother Ida who immigrated to the United States from Sweden.  When she left Sweden, Ida brought her 10-year old sister Anna with her.  Ida's sister Anna is the subject of Karl Beckstrand's second biography Anna's Prayer.  She is Karl Beckstrand's great-aunt.  Keep reading to learn more about Anna's Prayer and how you can use it in a compare and contrast lesson with Ida's Witness!

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Story Summary from Amazon

Discover the 1880s tale of Anna Anderson, a girl living in Sweden with her mother and her sister, Ida. The women are poor but happy. When they change religions, the family is persecuted and Anna's mother has trouble finding work. Eventually, she sends Anna and Ida to America without her to find a better life. Because Ida must work in Idaho, the sisters separate, and little Anna travels alone to Salt Lake City. Late at night, Anna arrives at the train station—but her female host is not there to meet her as arranged. Unable to speak English, the child prays Heavenly Father will send someone to help her—someone who speaks Swedish. But the answer to Anna’s prayer goes beyond what she could have imagined.

🍎 Title: Anna's Prayer

🍎 Author: Karl Beckstrand and Shari Griffiths

🍎 Publisher: Premio Publishing and Gozo Books, LLC

🍎 Date: December 8, 2016

🍎 Pages: 34

Reading Anna's Prayer

Anna's Prayer is a biography of Karl Beckstrand's great aunt Anna Anderson.  It is written in a first-person perspective from Anna's point of view.  Before reading Anna's Prayer with your students, you may need to do a quick minilesson of what the words biography and first-person perspective mean.

• A biography is a true story about someone's life. Biographies tell about famous people or ordinary people who have done exciting things. They usually center on one person's life and how they have contributed to the world.
• With the first-person point of view type of a story, the author uses one character to tell the story through their own personal experiences, feelings, and opinions. 

When I wrote my post about Ida's Witness several weeks ago, I included a variety of activities and lessons that would work equally well with Anna's Prayer.  These activities include:

• a lesson about geography and map skills
• a lesson describing who the Latter-day Saints and Mormons are
• a lesson about family history and family trees

To learn more about these activities and lessons, please read my post called Ida's Withness by Karl Beckstrand.  

Compare and Contrast Anna's Prayer and Ida's Witness

Anna's Prayer and Ida's Witness are written about siblings Ida and Anna Anderson.  They contain similar themes of family, courage, religion, faith, and adventure.  They also contain similar characters and events.  Because of the similarities in these two books, a compare and contrast lesson would be appropriate.  

The photos below are an example of a compare and contrast graphic organizer I use with my students.    The students can use complete sentences or phrases while filling it out... your choice.  Before filling out the graphic organizer, you may need to do a quick, minilesson about the words compare and contrast.

• To compare means to find the similarities between two things.
• To contrast means to find the differences between two things.

To download a FREE copy of this reading comprehension activity (two pages in all), please click on one of the images above. Clicking one of these images will take you to the Teachers-Pay-Teachers third-party website.  This is a FREE download-- no purchase necessary.

To learn more about Anna's Prayer and Ida's Witness, watch the video trailer by Multicultural Children's Books by Premio Publ. below.

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