Uni the Unicorn and the Dream
Come True. By Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Illustrated by Brigette Barrager.
Random House. $17.99.
Clark the Shark and the Big Book
Report. By Bruce Hale. Illustrated by Guy Francis. Harper. $16.99.
Syd Hoff’s Danny and the
Dinosaur: School Days. By Bruce Hale. Illustrated by John Nez. Harper.
$16.99.
My Weird School: Class Pet Mess!
By Dan Gutman. Pictures by Jim Paillot. Harper. $16.99.
Very simple stories told in
very simple language can be just right for very young readers, their simplicity
paving the way for much greater depth and complexity in later years of reading.
Uni the Unicorn and the Dream Come True,
for ages 3-7, is as simple as can be. This is Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s second
story of the only unicorn who believes that little girls are real – and, of
course, a little girl who believes in unicorns. Illustrated by Brigette
Barrager in the same warm, fanciful style she used in the first book, in which
pretty much everything is rounded and sweet and smiley, the second book
actually brings girl and unicorn into the same place at the same time (after
they apparently met only in dreams in the first story). The reason for the
get-together is that it is raining and raining and raining in the land of
unicorns, and since unicorns get their magic from the sun, from rainbows and
from “the sparkle of believing,” the magic has just about faded away. Keeping
it alive is Uni, thanks to his belief that little girls really do exist. In the
little girl’s world, it is also raining – and at one point, girl and unicorn
see lightning and hear thunder at exactly the same moment, and right then both
have the same wish, and in the book’s best illustration, “Then everything went
white and quiet.” The picture looks like a white-out, with girl and unicorn
seen more or less in silhouette and tinges of color bleeding through – it is an
exceptional scene. And right afterwards, girl and unicorn are together at last!
And soon they are running and jumping and playing and helping all sorts of
animals and, eventually, finding their way to a huge tree under which all the
other unicorns are huddled unhappily. Realizing that Uni was right about little
girls, all the unicorns erupt with joy and become, “once again, sparkly,
strong, and magical.” And they wish the rain away, and the sun comes back, and
everything is super-delightful and utterly happy. And there are two rainbows in the sky, not just one,
which means the little girl can use one to go home and Uni can use the other to
visit her world – a scene-setter for
another book if there ever was one. Uni
the Unicorn and the Dream Come True is super-easy to read and
super-straightforward in plot, and its pervasive happiness is just the thing to
encourage the youngest readers (and even pre-readers) to start discovering all
the wonders that books can bring.
Some books bring along their
delights as part of a sequence specifically designed for early readers of all
types, such as the “I Can Read!” series. Here too there are recognizable
characters – usually ones whose longer adventures can be found in picture books
for slightly older readers. Within the guided sequence, though, the tales are
designed for ease of comprehension and simplicity of involvement. Big,
bumbling, toothy-but-harmless Clark the Shark, for example, appears in a Level
1 book (“simple sentences for eager new readers”) suffering both from his
typical overconfidence and from a case of stage fright. In Clark the Shark and the Big Book Report, Bruce Hale and Guy Francis
have Clark hyper-eager to give his report on “The Frog Prince,” sure that he
will do wonderfully well because “I know my book like the back of my flipper!”
The other fish students are nervous about standing up in front of the class to
give their reports, but not Clark, who successfully tries out a joke on his
classmates at lunch and then gives his report to his family in the evening –
with everything going beautifully. But as usual, things do not go well for Clark
when the big moment of the actual report arrives: he has “a brain freeze” and
forgets what he wants to say: “His mind was as empty as a seashell.” No big
deal! His friends and teacher encourage him and tell him they know he can do
it, and Clark finds that he can give
the report after all, and everything ends happily. Clark’s misadventures are
fun for very young readers specifically because Clark is the biggest and most
fearsome-looking fish in his school but is really sweet and befuddled much of
the time, and good-natured all the
time.
Even bigger than a shark,
but portrayed as equally sweet, is the dinosaur introduced by Syd Hoff nearly
60 years ago in Danny and the Dinosaur
(1958). Hoff (1912-2004) created the thoroughly unrealistic, ever-smiling
dinosaur – who walks on his back legs but is shaped like the huge, long-necked
plant eaters that walked on all fours – as a simple, charming companion for
Danny, who meets the dinosaur in the museum. In Hoff’s book, the two have a day
filled with small adventures, such as going to a baseball game and the zoo and playing
hide-and-seek – and the well-meaning dinosaur takes Danny across a river and
lets Danny and other children use him as a slide. Most of what Hoff created
translates well to a new Level 1 book in which the dinosaur decides to follow
Danny to school. Thanks to apt and sensitive writing by Bruce Hale and pictures
in Hoff’s style by John Nez, Syd Hoff’s
Danny and the Dinosaur: School Days will be enjoyable for young readers
whose grandparents are likely the only people around them who might remember
Hoff’s original. In the new story, the dinosaur behaves as expected, mixing easily
with the children and teacher, cooperating in lessons, letting the kids learn
math by measuring parts of his body, and joining Danny for an outdoor lunch at
which the dinosaur munches leaves from a tree while Danny eats what he has
brought from home in an old-fashioned lunchbox. The style of writing, the type
of adventure and the form of illustration all have a pleasantly nostalgic
feeling about them here. Everything is warm-hearted and thoroughly
non-threatening. And this simple story
is one to which very young readers will be able to relate – although the
classroom does not really look like the type usually used for kindergarten, which
is about the right grade for Level 1 books, but more like one for kids in first
or second grade.
Of course, by the time they
move beyond kindergarten, most kids will be reading more-complex books than
those in Level 1 of the “I Can Read!” series, which actually contains five
levels from “My First” to Level 4. A step beyond Level 1 are books such as My Weird School: Class Pet Mess! This is
a Level 2 book (“high-interest stories for developing readers”), and again,
what Dan Gutman and Jim Paillot offer here is right in line with what they
provide in their longer, more-elaborate books for somewhat older readers. The story here actually fits nicely into what
might be called the ethos of My Weird
School, because instead of getting a typical class pet such as a hamster or
turtle, Mr. Cooper’s class votes to get a snake. It is a small, harmless
hognose snake named Bob, and the reactions in class, as usual in other My Weird School books, are divided.
Alexia, who narrates the book, considers Bob really cool, but Andrea finds the
snake gross. Gutman includes some factual material on hognose snakes and weaves
it nicely into the story: the snake “mostly eats live toads,” the teacher
explains, and Alexia cannot wait to feed Bob – who takes his meal in “one big
gulp,” so Alexia comments, “It wasn’t as disgusting as I hoped.” Several other
kids bring their own, sometimes rather weird pets to school over the next few
days, including a ferret, a skunk, and
finally Andrea’s poodle. But the dog leaps at Bob’s cage and barks loudly, and
Bob collapses on his back and the whole class freaks out, thinking Bob has died
of a heart attack. It is left to Mr. Cooper to remind the class that hognose
snakes play dead when they are frightened – something he told them before, but
a fact the class completely ignored. So all ends happily, especially for
Alexia, who says Bob is “the best, coolest class pet in the world” because
“Andrea HATES HIS GUTS.” My Weird School:
Class Pet Mess! offers a more-elaborate story than kids would get in a
Level 1 book, but not much more
elaborate, so this and other Level 2 books are effective stepping stones toward
the more-complex books that kids will increasingly be reading as they move
through school. And of course, the Clark the Shark and My Weird School books are designed by their authors and
illustrators to encourage young readers to familiarize themselves with the
central characters and look for more of their adventures in longer, more-invoved
books as kids’ reading abilities grow.
No comments:
Post a Comment