What Kids Say - November 2018

Welcome to this year’s penultimate What Kids Say post. This series is meant to mimic an important part of Geisel Committee members’ experience: observing while kids read Geisel contenders out loud. You can read more about the inspiration for this series in the series’ inaugural post. 

This is how it works. Each month I send a list of four contenders to a half dozen of our guest contributors that are caregivers of or regularly work with K-2nd grade students. I do my best to select a variety of levels and topics for readers at different stages of the learning to read process. All the titles covered in this month’s post have already been covered by guest contributors and links can be found below. The focus of this series is on the experiences and observations from kid readers and their grown-up contributors. 

Many thanks to Jamie Chowning, DaNae Leu, and Samantha Marino for all their hard work sharing, observing, and collecting feedback from the kids in their lives. This time approximately 80 first and second graders participated. About 20 kids read each title and most kids read just one of the titles. 

Kick It, Mo! book cover

Kick It, Mo! by David A. Adler, illus. by Sam Ricks 
Mo Jackson, still the youngest and smallest, is back for a sports story all about soccer. Adler and Ricks’ first book about Mo (Don’t Throw It to Mo!) was the Geisel winner the year Amanda, Misti, and I were on the committee. Pass the Ball, Mo! by the same creators also came out this year, but to me Kick It, Mo! is the stronger of the two. Additionally, the kids in my community can take or leave basketball, but they’re absolutely gaga about soccer. We simply never have enough soccer books to satisfy their obsession. For more on both Mo titles published in 2018, read Jackie’s post from last month.

Looking at the feedback, it seems the kids in my community have a lot in common with our kid readers this month because nearly all comments were about soccer. 

• “I love soccer” 
• “He made a skor” [sic] 
• “It was a good book about it was about soccer.” 
• “That Mo winse the game.” [sic] 
• “Mo does not give up at all.” 
• “Mo kicked it.” 

Kids were also specific about the things they didn’t like so much. 

• “The teams they wer weerd.” [sic] 
• “He woldint realy kick it on the ground” [sic] 
• “He mist one time when he trid to wine” [sic] 
• “It was soccer and he couldn’t kick the ball and he was tiny and his team sucks.” 

Less than half of the kids said the book was interesting, although most said they would read the book again. Not many words were called out as challenging, although one first grader said players was a difficult word for them. Six out of 20 found the book confusing. Those six kids said they enjoyed the book, but wouldn’t read it again. One grown up contributor wrote, “Sometimes you have a book that you think the reader (adult or child) in front of you will like. It has everything they like! And they don’t like it. The Mo books are great--they just didn’t resonate [with my kids] for whatever reason.” 

Given the feedback, it’s clear that kids are excited to read about soccer, but I wonder if the fact that so many of them said the book was confusing will keep this title from rising to the top. 

A Parade of Elephants book cover

A Parade of Elephants by Kevin Henkes 
Henkes has been honored twice by the Geisel Committee (Waiting and Penny and Her Marble), so I wanted to see how his newest picture book offering would be received by kids. I wondered if the pastel color palette and the simple story would be enough to engage first and second graders. On a side note, after reading this book I learned there are three collective nouns for a group of elephants: a parade, a herd, a memory. 

Overall, most kids found the book interesting and would read a sequel, although a handful said they’d do neither. Additionally, nearly all the kids found the design of the book easy to follow. Marching elephants seemed to be a big hit with lots of kids mentioning that specifically in their feedback, although one kid emphatically disliked, “wen thay march” [sic]. Several kids called out the stars, the colors, the moon, and the ending as things they enjoyed about the book. 

Positive feedback included: 

• “The stars surprise at the end!” 
• “It shode their butt’s” [sic] 
• “Wen they wet to sleep” [sic] 

About half the kids read the entire text with ease. The other half needed help with 1-5 words. Only one child, a first grader who found the book confusing, needed help over 10 times. Words that tripped up readers: yawns, stretch, parade, elephants, round, across. Marching and scattering seemed to be the most difficult words for multiple kids. For more on this title, read Kahla’s post from last month. 

Take a Hike, Miles and Spike!
book cover

Take a Hike, Miles and Spike! by Ethan Long 
Having won the Geisel in 2013 for Up, Tall and High!, I was curious to see if Long’s humorous picture book about an outdoorsy pair of dogs would have the same page turning dynamic. For more on this title, take a gander at Sylvie’s post from September.
  
It seems kids either read this title with ease or were tripped up by quite a few words, including: rainbow, everyone, join, marmoset, gazelle, otter, trout, vamoose, acted, again. Enjoyment of the book was also mixed; some kids struggled to read this book, but still wanted to read it again, while other kids who read it with ease gave it two or three stars out of five. About a third of the kids found the book confusing. 

Another fascinating observation is that only a handful of kids included specific feedback for this title (For the other three titles covered this month the kids were quite vocal in their likes and dislikes). Two kids liked “when all the animals yelled at Miles and Spike!” and another especially loved the moose. On the flip side, one kid found the book boring and another disliked, “when they were rood to the animals” [sic]. 

All in all, it seems this title didn’t seem to engage readers as much as other titles and the vocabulary presented some challenges for readers. 

Mr. Monkey Bakes a Cake
book cover

Mr. Monkey Bakes a Cake by Jeff Mack 
The first book in Mack’s new Mr. Monkey series, this is the longest book this month coming in at 64 pages, twice the length of Kick It, Mo! (32 pages). As Jenna pointed out in her post, there are some very visually busy pages, as well as the use of several fonts. Would these elements deter readers from having a successful reading experience? 

The page design and multiple fonts didn’t seem to stop any kids from enjoying the book, as nearly all the kids said they enjoyed reading it. One grown up contributor wrote, “There is a lot to like here. Monkeys, bananas, and slapstick are all kid-pleasers...The humans shown are diverse and there’s a lot of inviting visual comedy.” Indeed, much of the praise from kids focused on the visual humor of the story. 

• “At the end of the story he triped and fel and his head went into the cake.” [sic] 
• “Everyone enterd for the cake show.” [sic] 
• “At least he got to eat the frosting.” 
• “His butt has a ribbon on it!” 

The cake itself was a pretty big hit for many kids: 

• “All those guys baked really big cakes and Mr. Monkey made the smallest cake.” 
• “When the monkey makes a cake” 
•  “It had a cake in it.” 

One reader especially loved the part “when the monkey gave the banana to the gorilla.” And another loved that “At the end he made a frand.” [sic] 

Although most kids loved this title, a few kids struggled to sound out words, including Mr. Monkey and bananas. Notably, idea was an especially challenging word for several kids. Several kids mentioned that they didn’t like “that he kept saying ooh!!” Additionally, a grown up contributor wrote, “It does seem, though, like a larger font would have been more supportive of newer readers."  

The same contributor wrote, "My little guy initially balked at the length of the book, but realized it was a quick read--as a longer book with strong repetition, it works as a challenge for a newer reader or a comfortable confidence- and fluency-building read for a more confident one." 

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So that’s what kids have to say this month! What are your kids saying about these books? Let us know in the comments. Also, you can use the comments to let us know if there are any titles you’d like us to cover in future installments of What Kids Say.