Easy / Transitional Books (Week 5)

 The Princess in Black - Shannon and Dean Hale




Hale, Shannon, and Dean Hale. 2017. The Princess in Black. Illustrated by LeUyen Pham. Candlewick Press.

    The Princess in Black is about Princess Magnolia who takes on the secret identity of The Princess in Black to fight monsters with her pony Blacky. They fight a blue monster who wants to eat Goat Boy's goats. Meanwhile, the duchess snoops around the castle to try to find Princess Magnolia's secret. This book meets the criteria for a transitional book. The typeface is relatively large with a lot of space between lines. There are 15 short, episodic chapters that are easy to summarize. There are color illustrations that show on alternate pages of the text and also in between lines. This book is close to being a level 3 book but what keeps it from that status is that it contains compound sentences and is split into short chapters. I almost wanted to rate it at a level 3 because it doesn't contain many words per line and usually less than 15 lines per page. 

The Book Hog - Greg Pizzoli 



Pizzoli, Greg. 2019. The Book Hog. New York: Disney*Hyperion.

    This is a book about a hog who absolutely loves books but doesn't know how to read. After attending a library story time with Ms. Olive, he learns how to read! I would put this book in Level 2. The text has some multisyllabic words and some longer sentences. There are an average of five words per line and no more than three lines per page. The illustrations are needed to show context to the text; for example, when Book Hog looks for books here and there, the illustrations show a yard sale and a garbage can. The illustrations also leave room for the text to lay in the white space. The typeface is rather small for an easy reader being at maybe 14 pt size. 

The Cat on the Mat is Flat - Andy Griffiths



Griffiths, Andy. 2007. The Cat on the Mat Is Flat. Edited by Terry Denton. New York: Feiwel & Friends.

    This is a book that has several humourous stories that center around a specific rhyme! My favorite story is "Ed and Ted and Ted's dog Fred" which is about a man named Ed who left the shed after Ted's dog Fred bit Ed on the head. Fred and Ted then follow Ed to try to get him back to the shed. I would put this book in level 2 since the sentence structure can be complex. There can be up to 15 lines on a page and each line has around 4 to 6 words on average. The typeface has a large font with plenty of space between lines and plenty of white space from the illustrations. The black and white, hand-drawn illustrations are simple but do help show what the text is describing and add to the humor. 

All of these were read from an ebook so critiques about text size may be inaccurate in print. 

Comments

  1. Jen CJune 11, 2024 at 11:44 AM

    Some books really do straddle the line. That's where your professional opinion as a librarian comes into play for parents and kids needing guidance. Any of these would be a good base for a review with some additional summary and more opinion on your observations.

    ReplyDelete

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