Readability

Amber and Essie are sisters. Amber was brave. She wasn’t afraid of climbing up into high places. Essie was smart. She could read very hard library books. Together they make a good team. Their father is in prison, their mother works long hours, and there is little money to pay the bills. Through a series of interconnected poems, Williams presents Amber and Essie’s sad, funny, and moving tale. Full-color portraits of the girls precede the story, and an album of dramatic moments closes the book. Black-and-white pencil drawings are interspersed among the poems.

With each turn of the page, readers will be presented with a new puzzle. The rhyming text presents challenges to spot specific trinkets in eye-catching photographs of odds and ends (e.g., “A ladybug, three stars of blue, a piece of a jar, a die showing two…”). In addition, each rhyme concludes by asking readers to follow a maze, match objects, or spot an optical illusion. More difficult than they appear, Wick’s puzzles will captivate any reluctant reader.

Stevenson sees ordinary objects through a poet’s eyes. With wondrous words and watercolor-and-ink vignettes, snow-covered cars become hippos, chained-up bikes are desperate to escape, and forks and spoons converse about the taste of ice cream. If your students are captivated by this poetry collection, introduce them to Stevenson’s others, including Sweet Corn (1995), Popcorn (1998), and Candy Corn (1999).

This series covers a range of nonfiction topics that interest younger and older students — from cats to comic book characters. Each book includes full-color photographs and illustrations, and appropriate text for one of four graduated reading levels. There are over 20 books in each level. Titles include:

Level 1 (Beginning to read) Rockets and Spaceships, A Day in the Life of a Dancer, Whatever the Weather

Level 2 (Beginning to read alone) Firefighter!, Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!, The Story of Pocahontas

Level 3 (Reading alone) Anne Frank, Extreme Sports, Shark Attack!

Level 4 (Proficient readers) Horses, Creating the X-Men, Volcanoes, NFL: Rumbling Running Backs

A nine-year-old slave, Corey Birdsong, writes about his daily life in his journal. Journal entries become more suspenseful as he and his mother escape and make the dangerous journey north along the Underground Railroad. Photos and historical references give this fictional journal a sense of real history. (Don’t be put off by Corey’s spelling mistakes — he does improve!)

At the playground, at the pet store, on a car trip, or at home: Dick, Jane, and Sally alwayshave fun. Will Dick get another dog? Will Sally finally win a game of hide-and-go-seek? And who are Dick and Jane’s favorite friends? With short stories and text from the original Dick and Jane basic readers, this is a perfect chapter book for eager new readers!

Parents will love revisiting a fond part of their childhoods when they share these classicDick and Jane readers with their children. With charmingly innocent exploits and simple, repetitive declarations, these beloved characters helped entire generations work, play, look, see—and learn! And now they’re available for a whole new generation to enjoy. “Look, Jane,” said Dick. “Here is something funny. Can you guess what it is?”

Dick, Jane, Sally, Mother, and Father are not the only family having fun. This time, meetMike, twin sisters Pam and Penny, and their parents. Two families mean twice the laughs and twice the fun. Beginning readers will love the way each chapter is an individual story, and parents and educators will appreciate the way this format encourages young readers’ progression.