Tunes for Bears to Dance To

1. Tunes for Bears to Dance To Welcome to Henry’s World

2. Where? When? The story takes place in Wicksburg, a fictional neighborhood of Boston, in the years just after World War II ended.

3. Henry, age 12, lives on the top floor of a “three-decker” – a three-story building housing a different family on each floor.

4. These buildings (along with anything else called “double-decker” or “triple-decker”) are named after the three-decked ships that many immigrant arrived on.

5. Most three-deckers were built right after WWI, when trolley cars helped to expand the outer limits of cities. Some were elegant and refined; others were poorly constructed and designed to house the lower working classes. This latter type of three-deckers were called “tenements.” Henry and his family live in a tenement.

6. Many three-deckers have covered front porches on all three floors. These porches are called “piazzas.”In the book, Henry spends a lot of time on the piazza after he injures his knee.

7. Three-deckers usually have back porches as well. They are typically not as elegant as those facing the street. The back porches often face alleyways or train tracks.

8. Henry tries to help raise money for his family by working at a small “mom and pop” grocery store owned by Mr. Hairston.

9. Mr. Hairston tells Henry stories about selling rationed foods and supplies during World War II. Rationing was meant to help conserve food and materials (especially rubber, metal, gasoline and nylon) for our soldiers fighting overseas.

10. Many common food staples were strictly rationed during the war: cheese, butter, meat, sugar, coffee – even chocolate!Americans received stamp-like ration coupons that had to last for a month.

11. Lines would often form early when news spread that a new shipment of meat, cigarettes, sugar or some other rationed delicacy was to arrive at the local grocery store.

12. 1945 Even after the war ended, not everything returned to “normal.”

13. In 1945, millions of U.S. soldiers returned from the war, seeking jobs in cities that were already over-crowded by families who moved there seeking war-time employment.

14. Haves vs. have-nots Veterans received preferential housing and jobs. But many older and blue-collar Americans lived below the poverty line in decaying tenement buildings – Henry and his family among them.

15. And, like all wars, WWII left many injured physically - and mentally. In the book, Henry’s friend Mr. Levine survived the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, but he lost his wife, his son…and his mind.

16. COLD WAR And while Russia and the U.S. had been allies during WWII, tensions built between the two nations as Russia pursued its own nuclear weapons.

17. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1MQ4eyg6U4:/ Before long, Russia had encased itself behind an “Iron Curtain,” and the “Red Scare” made Americans of all ages and incomes fearful that a nuclear war would soon break out.