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Alexandra Patterson is changing it up today with the transitional reader, The Show Must Go On, by Kate Klise that she gives a 5/5!

 
If you're in the mood for picture books, Dawn Dvorak has reviewed five of them!
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Simply Delicious - Margaret Mahy
"A father buys an ice cream cone for his son and bikes through the jungle to bring it home to him. This book is cute, but text heavy. There is a lot of repetition: the long description of the ice cream is said multiple times on each page, the way each animal spots the ice cream and follows along, and the way the father moves the cone around to avoid the animals. The ending is a little off, as the father hands the ice cream to his son, and all of the hungry animals eye each other for food. Also, the last scene is on the end papers, which is odd (maybe just my edition?)."

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Should I Share My Ice Cream - Mo Willems
"Part of the wonderful Elephant & Piggy series. Gerald gets an ice cream cone and is trying to decide whether he should share with his best friend Piggie. He tries talking himself out of it, but eventually decides to do the right thing. Unfortunately, while he has been contemplating what to do, his ice cream has melted! Luckily, Piggie comes along with her own ice cream cone, and graciously offers a bite to Gerald. Cute book, but a bit too long for a storytime with younger children. It's a great easy reader though, and with two characters (though Gerald has much more dialogue than Piggie in this particular book), children can alternate with a parent."

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Curious George and the Ice Cream Surprise - Margret & H.A. Rey's
"I read this in a storytime about ice cream, though I skipped over some of the text to get through it more quickly. Curious George is always fun though, and since we do so many songs about monkeys, it was fun to have a monkey in a book as well. In this book, Curious George is trying to beat the heat, but the pool closes, the sprinklers are turned off, the freezer breaks, and he is having a hard time flagging down the ice cream truck. When the truck passes him by for the second time, George takes off after it, eventually climbing onto the roof. When the ice cream man goes to the bank for more change, Curious George "helps" by continuing to hand out ice cream, but without collecting money. The ice cream man is upset, but the mayor generously offers to pay for everyone's ice cream, as the town could use an ice cream party. In the end, George gets his chocolate covered bananasicle."

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It Looked Like Spilt Milk - Charles C. Shaw
"A simple book, but definitely a hit at storytime. Each page features a rough, white object on a navy background, along with the phrase "It looked like X, but it wasn't X." Very interactive as you can let the kids guess what each of the objects are as you read along. A couple of the pictures are a little bit harder to figure out, but you can easily skip over them. The ending is that they are all shaped clouds in the sky, which can make a great introduction for books about weather, or about any of the objects that are included."

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The Ice Cream King - Steve Metzger
"I used this for an ice cream storytime, and it seemed to go over well!
A young boy goes into an ice cream shop with his mother, and she allows him to order anything he wants. An employee puts a paper crown on the boy's head, and the boy declares himself the ice cream king. As we enter this fantasy world of ice cream volcanoes, castles, moons, and oceans, the colors become vivid and bright, as the boy relates in rhyme all he will go in his ice cream kingdom. However, the boy soon realizes that he is all alone in his kingdom and he needs someone to share with (as fittingly, the sun sets on his ice cream kingdom). The boy removes his crown and the colors return to simpler black and white with red accents. The boy places his order, which includes two spoons so he can share with his mother. The last page shows a happy mother and son, with the big bowl of ice cream featuring the bright colors that existed in the ice cream kingdom! A bit text heavy in the ice cream shop, but the kingdom text is short and snappy."

 
Kate Barr didn't find much to redeem Ruth Amos' cheeky combination of pop culture characters, but would you "feel the force" of it or end up "angry" too?
I was so confused by this book when I saw it on the new books cart at the library where I work that I just had to read it, and I had two primary issues with it.

- Level 1 easy reader? Really? An early easy reader should have lots of white space between lines and short sentences with simple words that can either be sight recognized or deciphered through pronunciation very easily. There should be no more than 1-2 sentences per page. There are 3-4 syllable words on every page, and it would be difficult for a new reader to parse the sentences on his or her own - they're crowded too close together.

- Another feature of the easy reader is that it should introduce children to the concept of reading through a story or understanding facts (in the case of a nonfiction easy reader). There is neither here, just an assortment of puns. Emerging readers won't get any sense of story structure through this.

As a novelty gift for a proficient reader who is an Angry Birds or Star Wars fan, this book is a success. As an easy reader for someone learning to read independently, it is a complete failure.
 
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Kate Barr also read this transitional reader from the Rainbow Magic series by Daisy Meadows, but was not as big a fan...

As those of you who work in elementary school libraries or public library children's departments can attest, the Rainbow Fairies books are wildly popular with little girls at the transitional reader stage. Rachel and Kirsty are best friends who are able to communicate with fairies. This is the only one I've read, but I assume they all follow the same basic format as this one, where the girls start off doing something ordinary (in this case, hiking), realize something is wrong (bad luck is following them), find a fairy who needs their help (Lara, the fairy of black cats), are turned into fairies themselves, and solve the problem, receiving accolades. Kirsty and Rachel are kind of insipid with no distinguishing characteristics (I couldn't have told them apart if I tried) or even any particularly admirable character traits. I mean, even the trolls they're trying to outsmart point out that their plan to get the magical black cat back is poorly thought out.

Honestly, this was fine, and I understand why kids like the Rainbow Fairies series. But they aren't something I'd suggest to a child who wasn't already hooked on them. At this reading level, I would be more inclined to suggest something like Magic Treehouse books, which (while still being predictable fantasies) at least have some cultural and historical content to supplement them.
 
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Kate Barr recommends this Cece Bell transitional reader.  Would you?

Kids will love this adorable transitional book about Rabbit and Robot, two friends who plan a sleepover but cannot agree on what to do. Rabbit has planned a list of things to do for the evening, but Robot's tastes differ - Rabbit wants veggie delight pizza, while Robot wants nuts 'n' bolts pizza. A fun book that will appeal to parents and children, Rabbit and Robot's story has themes of resolving differences and getting along with friends who like different activities.
 
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Martha Waters reviewed this Easy Reader book by Marilyn Sadler.  Join her on her trip down memory lane.

I picked this up at work the other day because it's a book my grandfather used to read to me a lot when I was a kid, and I thought it might be worth revisiting. It's nothing groundbreaking, but I still thought it was a pretty enjoyable read - it's all about a bunny who doesn't want to be a bunny anymore and so instead tries out life with a variety of different animals, from birds to beavers. In the end, he decides that he likes being a bunny after all. Some of my affection for this book is certainly motivated by nostalgia, but even so this is still a sweet book with a good message that is ideal for beginning readers.