Holiday House I Like to Read Titles - Fall 2018

Image courtesy of Jamie Chowning

Jamie Chowning is a children's and adult librarian at the Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales branch of Denver Public Library. She became interested in beginning readers when she didn't know what books to bring home for her personal children once they started kindergarten. This October, she co-presented on introducing beginning readers to storytime families at the Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy conference.

Book covers of I Like My Car by Michael Robertson, Squeak the Mouse Likes His House by Pat Schories, and Can You Find My Pup? by Vincent X. Kirsch

This fall, Holiday House adds three more Fountas & Pinnell leveled readers to its very competent I Like to Read series, all aimed at very new readers in kindergarten and first grade. Take a look at my earlier post for more about the spring I Like to Read series titles. 

There’s no A-level entry this time, making the earliest one I Like My Car by Michael Robertson, at level B. Different animals appear in different colored cars, with only the color varying. The repetition and visual context clues allow even very new readers to have a successful experience--if not a compelling one. The illustrations are engaging, though not particularly special, but there’s no discernible plot or even order to the cars. 

Image of a shark driving a black car from I Like My Car by Michael Roberson

Squeak the Mouse Likes His House by Pat Schories (level C) offers a little more excitement as a mouse darts around without being seen by humans and benefits from some spilled trail mix. The tininess of the mouse relative to the children, though, interfered with visual context clues, and on one page he refers to a shoe as a “bed,” which isn’t supportive of kindergarten readers. On the other hand, illustrations showing the mouse drinking out of the dog’s bowl and enjoying the “free snacks” spilled by a little girl are likely to draw children in. 

Image of a mouse drinking water from a dog dish and a sleeping dog from Squeak the Mouse Likes His House by Pat Schories

The highest level, and the most interesting fall offering, is Can You Find Pup? by Vincent X. Kirsch, at level D. Pup is frustrated that he never shows up in Tate’s drawings. But when Pup runs away, Tate makes many drawings of him for posters and they are soon reunited. Children who are drawn to seek-and-find books will enjoy looking for ten bugs, ten birds, ten Pups, etc., and may also enjoy talking about the different art styles--Tate draws mostly in black and white, while other pictures are in rainbow colors and the rainy day when Pup is missing is all gray.

Image of ten birds hidden in a black and white tree and one multicolored pup from Can You Find Pup? by Vincent X. Kirsch

Very early readers are hard to write and Holiday House struck gold three times last year with I Can Run, I See a Cat (2018 Geisel Honor), and I Like the Farm, all at level A. Perhaps it’s unfair, but I keep finding myself disappointed that their subsequent offers haven’t been as strong. They are all…fine. More engaging than much of what exists at this reading level. As with the spring titles, though, I don’t see an award winner here.