Description
- Level/Grade: Level 4 / 9th–12th
- Starts: 3/10/2026 (Spring Break 4/6-4/10)
- Length: 5 Weeks
- Day: Tuesdays
- Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am PST
- Teacher: Lori May
- Materials: Novel and Workbook included
During this 5-week session, teachers will support students as they journal characters, themes, symbols, and motifs, explore vocabulary, discuss ideas, receive feedback on the weekly synopsis and personal reflection, and the culminating essay.
From his window, a musician sees twenty-two of his friends and neighbors waiting in a breadline. Then, in a flash, they are killed by a mortar attack. In an act of defiance, the man picks up his cello and decides to play at the site of the shelling for twenty-two days, honoring their memory. Elsewhere, a young man leaves home to collect drinking water for his family and, in the face of danger, must weigh the value of generosity against selfish survivalism. A third man, older, sets off in search of bread and distraction and instead runs into a long-ago friend who reminds him of the city he thought he had lost, and the man he once was. As both men are drawn into the orbit of cello music, a fourth character—a young woman, a sniper—holds the fate of the cellist in her hands. As she protects him with her life, her own army prepares to challenge the kind of person she has become.
