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From Dinosaurs to Terrible Pets: Books for Young Readers

Here's a review of five books from the kindergarten through first-grade book list.

It's summer reading time for kindergarten through first graders. I read five different books from the kindergarten through first-grade summer book list at the Howard County library. I picked the books because I liked the titles. It should be noted that I hate reading like this—whenever I read a book, I like to do some level of research, especially if the book is more than 100 pages.

My first book was from the Toot and Puddle book series. I read Toot and Puddle: A Present for Toot by Holly Hobbie. It’s Toot’s birthday and Puddle struggles to find a present for his best friend. This book has a five-star product rating on Amazon but personally, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoy the television show. I think I enjoy the glossy colors on the show more than the muted pastels. And I like the "Boomerang" song. My daughter lost interest in this book as well. The story itself was not very engaging.  However, there are many Toot and Puddle books, so maybe I need to try a different one.

Next, I read One World, One Day by Barbara Kerley, a picture book that shows how children all around the world are different and yet the same. All children wake up, eat breakfast, go to school, play, go home, do chores and go to sleep. What makes this book so special is the National Geographic photos. In the back of the book there is a reference guide of all the photos taken, and many include photographer’s notes. My favorite is on page 6 by Ami Vitale, who speaks about a young boy asking her about life in America. He asks her, “Is there the moon in America?”

The last of the picture books was by far the biggest hit in my house: Children Make Terrible Pets by Peter Brown. It’s about Lucy the bear, who finds a child in the woods and decides to name him Squeaker, because he makes cute noises. Her mom warns her that children make terrible pets. Lucy doesn’t care. She wants to keep Squeaker. But she quickly learns being a pet mom is very hard. There’s a wonderful twist ending that makes my daughter laugh. Besides the clever premise, this book shines in its retro style, art and fonts. Every emotion is perfectly conveyed with humor. I’m considering buying my own copy so I can return my copy to the library so other families can fully enjoy it.

The last two books were early reader books. Bones and the Dinosaur Mystery, by David A. Adler, is about the detective Jeffery Bones, who is at the museum with his grandpa and loses his toy dinosaur. This book’s biggest benefit is it is easy to read. With the exception of the words “dinosaur,” none of the words are longer than three syllables. But the story sort of lacked the cleverness I had read in the other books. More so, I was annoyed that Bones rarely said thank you, and he had pretty bad manners. (Yep, now I sound like an uptight parent, but it really bothered me.) It was 32 pages long, but very word heavy. I have not read the rest of the Bones series; maybe this one was the weakest of the bunch. I picked it because my daughter likes dinosaurs.

At 43 pages, Ling and Ting Not Exactly the Same by Grace Lin is the longest of the books, but one of the smartest. Ling and Ting are two identical sisters, but they are very different. The most noticeable difference? Ting sneezes during a haircut and it ends in disaster. This book has six different stories. Each story could stand on its own, but they all tie together nicely with a wonderful conclusion. It sprinkles in a little bit of Chinese culture as well. While this book is the longest, it’s less word heavy than the Bones book and the pictures are bright and colorful.

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