Saturday, November 2, 2013

Early Reader Books, Part 2

Well, I should get on with Part 2 of my Early Reader series.

Our reader renewed her interest in reading about April and April through June was working through pre-reader and "Level 1" books. Although, as I mentioned before Level 1 was actually a pretty hit or miss "Level". So the rest of the summer to now, she's been comfortably cruising "Level 2" books and some "Level 3" books as the mood strikes her. For most of this time, I've been checking out stacks of books and giving her 2-4 books a day. I try to throw in some non-fiction, but she hasn't been interested. My approach is like my approach to vegetables, I set them in front of her and hope she'll eventually try some.

Anyways, here are our favorite series from this summer.

Cynthia Rylant has created many series of early readers, of which we really liked three: Henry and Mudge; Annie and Snowball, and Mr. Putter and Tabby. I liked them because the language seemed well within reach for our reader. She liked them because she liked the characters and that there were more books about those same characters. My only quirk about them is that all the characters from top to bottom are Caucasian when ethnicity is incidental to the stories. Would have been nice for a few of the characters to be illustrated as something else.


Another series we liked involved the antics of Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa. Yes, another human-animal relationship but at this point, anything that maintains reader interest and isn't otherwise awful is quite nice.

 Longer than the previous series mentioned, Cork and Fuzz by Chaconas are two animal friends who get along like the Odd Couple. Initially, the greater length made our reader sigh, but now she takes them on with aplomb.

Honestly, by the end of the summer we had exhausted the library branch near us. So lately, I've been over to another branch not too much further away and have been happy to have a new set of books available. As always, I would love more recommendations for good early reader books. 

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