P. 37—“One day was on its way.” This page says One day four times. The first three times, the author shares big things that were going to happen; the Beatles would shake Muddy’s hand, the president would tap his toes to the music, and the whole world would know Muddy’s name. He didn’t know all those things were in his future, but we can look back and see they were coming, so Michael Mahin says, “One day is on its way.” Don’t you love that!

P.1 “And then she was gone. Forever.” Oh, no! He lost his mama! Who is going to take care of him! [The author answers this on the next page. “But McKinley did have Grandma Della.”]

P. 2 “But the music Muddy really loved, they didn’t play on Sundays.” Aren’t you wondering what music he really loved? I am. [The author answers this on the next page. “What Muddy really loved was fish-fry music. It was shake off the dust and wring out your worries and laugh and cry and feel alive music.”]

P.2 “She scooped him up and tried to keep him clean and finally just started calling him Muddy.” Oh my, I am inferring that he loves playing in the mud so much, his grandma just changed his name to Muddy. Remember on page one, his mama couldn’t keep him out of it either. She just laughed and called him her muddy baby.

P.7 “No child of mind is gonna waste his time with music.” She thought music was a waste of time. She said you can’t eat the blues for breakfast. Maybe she is thinking he needed something that was a “real” job, something that would put food on the table.

Sometimes, when you sound out a word, it doesn’t sound quite right or doesn’t make sense in the sentence. That’s okay! You can try a different sound for some of the letters to help figure it out.

Here’s how:

1. Say the word the first way you think it sounds.
2. If it doesn’t sound right, change one of the sounds.
3. Try again until the word sounds like a real word you know!

For example:

• Wring — If you say wuh-ring, try ring (the "w" is silent).
• Plow — If you say pl-oh, try pl-ow (like in "cow").
• Bustle — If you say bus-tul, try bus-sul instead.

The line breaks and words themselves show us how to read these passages with beautiful phrasing and prosody.

P. 24 “It was a deep-feeling, gutbucket, gut-aching music full of life and love and trouble and pride. It made people stand up and raise their hands and stomp their feet and laugh and cry and come alive.”

P. 33 “He called up the sticky heat of a summer night, the power of love, and the need for connection in a world that was so good at pulling people apart.”

Select two or three words from the text to focus on. Share how prior knowledge or context clues brings deeper meaning to the text.

Possible choices are jukejoints(p.13),sharecropping(p.14),back-busting(p.14),soul-breaking (p. 14), chiffon (p. 23).