Book #3- Poem Books

Title: Hist Wist 

Author: E.E. Cummings 
Illustrator: Deborah Kogan Ray 

Publisher: Crown Publishers Inc. 
Publication Date: 1976

ISBN #: 0-517-57360-1

Brief Summary: This book is a chant like poem about Halloween and all of the things associated with the day. The book describes old witches, the devil, ghosts, and goblins. Make the sounds that these creatures are making and chant along with them in this book by E.E. Cummings. 

Evaluation: I thought this book was rather odd. The words did not always rhyme and they sounded more like a chant rather than a poem. It also reminded me of a predictable book at times when the author wrote out what the first word on the next page was going to be. There were also a number of words that were made up and might be difficult for young readers to figure out. The illustrations were incredible. They had such elaborate colors that seemed to melt into one another and the detail was so intense. The illustrator really brought the readers right into the story and up close and personal with its characters whether you wanted to be or not. At the end of the book, the entire poem is written out together as if they were lyrics. I found this book to be creepy and think it might scare some young readers, but the illustrations are definitely worth seeing for yourself. 

Rating: 2 out of 5 ghostlings. 

Book #2- Poem Books

Title: The Burger and The Hot Dog 

Author: Jim Aylesworth 
Illustrator: Stephen Gammell 

Publisher: Atheneum books for Young Readers 
Publication Date: 2001

ISBN #: 0-689-83897-2

Brief Summary: This is a funny book about food and the many adventures the foods find themselves in. The food face struggles like wearing stripes all day as candy canes, getting stuck together as cinnamon buns and hot dogs getting into arguments with hamburgers. At the end of the book you get to make up rhymes of your own! 

Evaluation: This is another rhyming book about food that is sure to keep you laughing! Another clever twist on personification shows that food has as many feelings and troubles as we humans do! The illustrations were so different. They were not realistic portrayals of the food by any means. Extra colors were used to make the food look whatever emotion they were feeling at the time and the foods shape was altered in different ways to make them look more like cartoons. Each small poem was so far-fetched that it made the book hilarious. Whatever you do, don't read the book while you are hungry, it will just make you even hungrier!

Rating: 4 out of 5 burgers

Book #1- Poem Books

Title: Dear Hot Dog 

Author and Illustrator: Mordicai Gerstein 

Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers 
Publication Date: 2011

ISBN #: 978-0-8109-9732-5

Brief Summary: This is a book about every day things as if they were alive! Written as poems, the author introduces you to things that children see throughout their day and tells you what those things are thinking! In this book you can read about the adventures of toes, a toothbrush, pants and of course, a hot dog. 

Evaluation: This book put a clever twist on personification, a common way of thinking for young children in Piaget's per-operational phase. Each poem explains the life and thoughts of these not so inanimate objects that children come across everyday! The pictures were drawn with scribbles, out of the lines, as if children had drawn them. At one point the formating of the words was completely turned on its side so the kids have to twist the book in order to read the words. So not only were the poems creative, but the formatting of the book was as well. This makes the book a lot more interactive! My favorite part about this book was its bright and vivid colors. I highly recommend this book to any child or poem lover!

Rating: 5 out of 5 hot dogs!

Book #3- Historical Text

Title: Meet Kit An American Girl Doll (Book 1)

Author: Valerie Tripp
Illustrators: Walter Rane and Susan McAliley

Publisher: Pleasant Company Publications
Publication Date: 2000

ISBN #: 2323205017

Brief Summary: This book is about a young girl named Kit Kittredge who is growing up in the 1930's. Kit has a dream of writing for a newspaper company and the book explains her adventures while trying to do so. Meanwhile, her family is living in The Great Depression, so it also highlights struggles Kit and her family went through during such an economically tough time.

Evaluation: When it comes to learning about history as a young reader, I immediately thought of The American Girl Series. Kits stories were my favorite growing up. The book gives young readers a way to relate to someone from a completely different time period. Kit goes through struggles like getting along with siblings, seeing her parents try to find jobs, and getting into innocent trouble like all kids still do today. What makes this book even better is that after the story is done, it offers a glimpse into the past. This education section of the book shows readers real photos of people from this time and tells them where people worked, what they ate and what their life was like while living in the midst of The Great Depression. Not only is this a fun book to read, but teaches the kids something valuable too about history and makes them want to read the rest of the books in the series! One may think that since the book is tied to toys, dolls, clothing and other marketable products, that the authors are just out to make money and not write high quality books. I would disagree with that assumption. It is clear after reading every single American Girl Doll book, that the authors really want their readers to learn about history through these books. I know I did. Meet Kit is a good quality historical text example and perfect for young readers, especially young girls.

Rating: 5 out of 5 newspaper articles!

Book #2- Historical Text

Book Title: Boy, Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs!

Author: Kathleen V. Kudlinski
Illustrator: S. D. Schindler

Publisher: Penguin Group Inc.
Publication Date: 2005

ISBN #: 0-525-46978-8

Brief Summary: This book tells readers about the very first Dinosaur related findings and how the assumptions that archaeologists in China made about the Dinosaurs were all wrong! We eventually figured out that they were wrong by doing more research and finding more Dinosaur bones. It then goes on to explain how other past assumptions about dinosaurs were wrong too!

Evaluation: The moral of this story is that our knowledge about Dinosaurs is constantly evolving as we conduct more research on the topic. Children can be inspired by reading this book to conduct their own dinosaur related research and maybe prove historical research that we hold to be true now, actually false! The font is multicolored at times, bold, and written with a fun font. These formatting characteristics make the book more appealing to read. It is also illustrated with both dark and bright colors which catch readers attention. This book would interest any young Dinosaur lover.

Rating: 3 out of 5 dinosaur feet.

Book #1- Historical Text

Book Title: A Horse Named Seabiscuit

Authors: Kathy East Dubowski and Mark Dubowski
Illustrator: Mike Rowe (includes photos)

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Publication Date: 2003

ISBN #: 0-448-43343-5

Brief Summary: This story highlighted the historical career of the racehorse named Seabiscuit. He ran 33 races and won lots of first place prizes! The authors emphasized how much of an underdog Seabiscuit was and that he still came out on top.

Evaluation: This was an inspiration book that gave me chills the whole time reading it. I love a good underdog story. Growing up with horses, my family was always talking about Seabiscuit, and now I can see why. This is a great story for any young reader who needs to feel like they can accomplish anything they put their mind to. I especially love how the authors included Seabiscuit's return to racing after he had gotten hurt. There was a mix of illustrations and real photos in black and white (as it would have been in that time period). I loved seeing both kinds of illustrations in one book. The authors did a great job describing the fantastic life of Seabiscuit, and I highly recommend this book to any young reader, especially any young horse lover!

Rating: 5 out of 5 race horses!