Mary Smith
Author: Andrea U’Ren
Publisher: Farr, Straus and Giroux
Copyright: 2003
Pages: 30
Reading Level: 2
Genre: Biography/History
Rating**

Summary:
Mary Smith is the town “knocker-up”. Now you are probably thinking, what is that? Back in the olden days before alarm clocks, people had to have a way of getting up on time, so for a few pennies they would pay a “knocker-up” to come and wake them. This book follows Mary on a usual day. She wakes up, well before anyone else does, and with her rubber tube and dried peas she sets off on her way through town. As she reaches each person’s house she will stand on the street below, take a dried pea, and shoot one at the window. She will continue to do so until, the person comes to the window and shows they are awake, and then she is off to her next client. Mary wakes the train conductor, the baker, and even the mayor. When she is finally done though, she heads home, to find her daughter still in bed. She is mortified that the town “knocker-up” let her daughter sleep in. Then she finds out that her daughter did not sleep in, but was sent home from school for trying to wake someone in class like Mary did every morning, by shooting a pea at them, but she had missed and hit the teacher. So the story ends with Mary and her daughter practicing their aim. A very informal but, a fun and simple way to learn history for children.

Who would benefit from reading this?
This would be a good choice for teachers to read to their children for history because it isn’t very long, but it still teaches you something. I for example had no idea that “knocker-ups” were how people were woken up in the olden days. Informational, but still entertaining for kids.

Potential problems/conflicts:
A problem with this book could be that all the facts might not be exact, or maybe that it teaches kids a new bad habit. Honestly though, there are no conflicts that I can foresee other than these at the most.

My reaction:
I thought his was a good book, especially for a history book. Most history books bore me, but this one is just short enough that you still get the history lesson but without getting bored. It is also nice because it teaches a part of history but makes it more relatable by focusing on one “knocker-up” Mary Smith. A great book for childrens history classes.