Wish List: Beginning Reader Reviews in Professional Journals

Amy Seto Forrester (she/her) is a youth services supervisor at Eugene Public Library (OR). After serving on the 2016 Geisel Award Committee, she helped to co-found and then co-host Guessing Geisel for several years. She writes books for developing readers with her author-illustrator brother, Andy Chou Musser. Their first book will be published by Chronicle Books. She is represented by Marietta Zacker of Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency. 

As someone who eagerly awaits the release of any and all beginning reader titles, I’ve always kept my eye on reviews in professional journals such as School Library Journal, Kirkus, Horn Book, Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and the Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books. I’ve recently started a new job that includes selecting beginning reader titles, a change for me as my last library system had centralized collection development. Now that they are vital to my daily work, I’m reminded how few beginning reader reviews there are, especially in comparison to other kidlit formats. 

So here’s my wish list for beginning reader reviews from professional journals. Some changes can be made by reviewers themselves (perhaps that includes you, dear reader!), while others rely on journals reassessing how they organize and present reviews. It’s my hope that 2022 brings us many of these changes! 

Beginning readers are reviewed as books for independent readers, rather than as books to be read aloud by an adult to a child. This might seem like a subtle difference, but consider the difference font design and size, vocabulary, and layout can make when it comes to creating a successful reading experience for developing readers. I’m looking for a review that tells me about word repetition, white space, page turning dynamic, etc. not a review that tells me if a beginning reader is fun to read aloud at preschool storytime. 

Create a beginning reader category in print journals and online databases. Many journals divide their books by age or grade. Often, beginning readers get lumped in with picture books or in a category that encompasses “Elementary” or “Younger Readers.” Selectors are then challenged to determine which titles might be beginning readers. For me this involves using page count and trim size as a starting point and then searching for more information on a title to see if I can get a sneak peek of the interior or find some other clues that tell me about vocabulary, layout, font, etc. This is time consuming and I’m pretty sure there are wonderful titles that fall through the cracks. Kirkus has an “Early Reader” category and I would love to see something similar from other journals. 

Create a beginning reader category for best book lists. Did you know that the ALSC Notables Children’s Book List does not include a category for beginning readers? It’s also a missing category in the best book lists from SLJ, Kirkus, and Horn Book (to name a few). Might this lack of category correlate with the low numbers of beginning readers included on these lists? 

Review more beginning reader titles. Books that get reviewed are more visible to selectors. If it’s not reviewed, I might not even have it on my radar. And even if I do, I have to rely on prior knowledge of the creators, publisher reputation, or the world wide web to determine if it’s a good fit for my library. The percentage of beginning readers reviewed out of the number that are published each year is strikingly low, especially when compared to picture books, middle grade, and even graphic novels. 

Take Action! 

You might be wondering what you can do right now to change the landscape of beginning reader reviews. I encourage you to take one or more of these actions to advocate for beginning reader reviews and increase their quality too! 

If you write for a professional review journal, ask them to assign you beginning readers and let them know how helpful that content would be to you and your colleagues. 

If you subscribe to a professional review journal, email them to ask for a beginning reader category or tag to make beginning readers easier to find. Bonus points if you let them know that beginning reader reviews are most helpful when written with a format-specific lens. 

Kick your beginning reader book reviews up a notch by digging into these helpful resources: 

• Geisel Award criteria 
• From Cover to Cover: Evaluating and Reviewing Children’s Books by KT Horning

What else do you yearn for in beginning reader reviews from professional journals? Use the comments below to share your ideas, questions, and thoughts. 

Jack Gets Zapped! by Mac Barnett

Jayce Senter is the lead librarian at Fort Worth Christian School. She has taught primary aged students for 16 years.

A book by Mac Barnett that looks like a video game? What else could you want? You know from just looking at the cover that Jack Gets Zapped! is going to be fun! Fans of Mac Barnett’s Jack series will immediately be in for this adventure. But even kids who don’t know Mac or his character Jack will snatch this book up. It is easy to read with sentences like “Jack! Quick! Come in!” It is reminiscent of Dick and Jane style but closer in content to Mo Willems books. They are high-interest because they are funny and hold the attention of early readers, but they are also easy to read with short sentences and predictive text. The 1st and 2nd graders I asked to read this book absolutely saw themselves in Jack who wants to do nothing but play video games. The kids that I had read this book said things like: “I liked it because it’s about stuff I like to do in real life.” “I liked it because it talked about him going into a video game.” “It was very funny!” “I liked it when the lady stomped the boss’s head. Now she can save Jack!” When I asked what the kids didn’t like about the book no one could come up with anything. It is a fun, easy book, perfect for beginning readers and a great contender for the Geisel award.

A Giant Mess by Jeffrey Ebbeler

Alec Chunn is a Children's Librarian at Tualatin Public Library. He was a member of the 2021 Caldecott committee and co-founded the mock Stonewall Book Award blog, Medal on My Mind.

While early reader comics are far from new, the explosion of titles from publisher after publisher has certainly caught my attention this year. Betsy Bird has already sung the well-deserved praises of Kraken Me Up, but I submit yet another Jeffrey Ebbeler book for consideration: A Giant Mess. I’m more than okay with the idea of both books getting some Geisel love (#TeamEbbeler) but, admittedly, I’m all in on A Giant Mess. It’s playful, funny, and—best of all—an example of brilliant visual storytelling. The story is simple: a white child named Molly refuses to clean their room. Exasperated Mom tells Molly to pick up the “giant mess.” Outside, a green giant child named Jack runs amok in the city playing with all the “cool toys” (read: people, buildings, animals, etc.). Chaos ensues until, much like Molly’s mom, Jack’s parents call for Jack to clean up. You know who else asks Jack to clean up? Molly! Their perfectly parallel plots converge and tidiness is achieved. Kind of. In defining “distinguished,” the Geisel award criteria notes how “plot, sensibility, and rhythm” contribute to a “stimulating and successful reading experience.” Cleaning up after playing is part of many children’s routines, but Ebbeler makes that familiar plot exciting through humor and careful pacing. As early as the cover image, the hand-lettered title cues the word giant’s double meaning. The cover image also sets up Ebbeler’s clever use of scale that drives the page turns once Jack is officially introduced. Molly and Jack change size depending on whose perspective is being taken (a giant eye here; a thumb there). The paneling is unusual and somewhat sophisticated, eschewing typical grid block paneling for varied panels that become part of the setting or pop out over splash pages. Even with the unpredictability, the art is never hard to follow. Obviously, the Geisel award isn’t about art but, rather, how text and art work together to support beginning readers. With fewer than 70 unique words and plenty of repetition, the text offers a limited vocabulary. All words are one or two syllables. Most pages only have a few speech bubbles and use fewer than five words per sentence, so there’s a sense of balance and consistency. Repeated phrases such as “I will not” and “This is too hard” stylistically connect Molly and Jack’s characters and give readers a chance to build confidence. Art? Check. Text? Check. My only quip is that some of the dialogue appears outside of speech bubbles, which may be confusing to readers new to the comics medium. But, hey, that’s a small mark on the Geisel scorecard of this otherwise giant contender.

Inside Cat by Brendan Wenzel

Jayce Senter is the lead librarian at Fort Worth Christian School. She has taught primary aged students for 16 years.

Inside Cat sees the world through a very narrow lens. Every window from his home gives him a different view. Brendan Wenzel plays with words and ideas by using one word sentences and alliteration. “Wanders. Wonders.” Inside Cat is sure he knows it all. And then he wanders outside. Of course, nothing is what he had thought from his limited view out the windows. It’s a wonderful book. It’s entertaining and fun, but also a great springboard for discussions about perspective. We can discuss with little kiddos and big kids alike how what we see from our limited view is not the whole picture. Ever. I had 1st and 2nd graders read Inside Cat. Some felt that it was too hard. I can understand some of the confusion in very early readers because Wenzel says things like “roaring flies” but pictures a helicopter. The picture does not help the reader figure out the words. This does make this book harder for emergent readers. I asked students what they did not like about the book. “It was hard to read.” “All the windows” But most felt it was fun and if they couldn’t read the words, they loved the pictures. I asked students what they liked most about the book. Some responses were: “All the windows. The windows showed funny stuff.” “I like the cat. He’s cute.” “fluffy rats!” (This is what the cat thought squirrels were.) “When it was rhyming.” Overall, It is a wonderful read-aloud even if some words may be too difficult for them to read on their own. It is a wonderful spring-board for conversation. However, I do not think it is easy enough or the text predictable enough to be considered for the Geisel.

Friendbots: Blink and Block Make a Wish by Vicky Fang

Robbin Friedman is the head of children's services at the Chappaqua Library. She has written for Horn Book and School Library Journal, chairs ALSC's Budget Committee, and reads a lot of science fiction.

It’s a classic story. The perky optimist meets the dour naysayer and the two become friends. Vicky Fang’s version of the well-loved trope features two robots with simple, expressive shapes, a sunny circle and a morose square who cross paths in the schoolyard. Purple square Block sits alone, watching the other boisterous bots, when blue circle Blink appears, using a sensor to scan the ground for treasure. Block reacts to each of Blink’s finds with predictable gloom (“That’s . . . a gum wrapper/With old gum in it”) but Blink persists. When they unearth a penny, Blink spins the discovery into the opportunity to make a wish. Though Block concludes the wish has been a bust (“I don’t see any gold. Or silver. Or gems!”), Blink knows better: The upbeat bot had really wished for a new friend. The visuals match the narrative in lively simplicity. A straightforward comics format and generic backgrounds keep the focus squarely on the friends, with one or both robots centered in each symmetrical panel. Word balloons offer a clear, non-serif font with ample white space and occasional bold words. In a potentially confusing decision, the word balloons are white when set against the schoolyard background but have a tinted hue matching their speaker when set against a white bleed panel. This means that the same robot may have different-colored speech balloons within the same spread. New comics readers may find the switch confusing, though the placement and balloon tails help clarify the speaker. The word choice includes some challenging vocabulary words (wrapper, probably, treasure) with minimal repetition, so this text works best for kids already comfortable with basic sight words. But the book also supports learning around comics literacy and robots. An opening page explains cartooning basics, in small text most likely designed for adults to share with kids. Back matter explains “What is a sensor?” highlighting the mechanical features both robots used to search for treasure. With a popular format and modern-age protagonists--what else could robots be?--this updated take on a classic trope might just ping those Geisel sensors.

“If you can catch it, you can keep it!”

Sylvie Shaffer served on the 2018 Geisel Committee. She’s the preK-8 librarian at the Capitol Hill Day School in Washington, DC and is active in several overlapping kidlit-focused communities including ALSC and Capitol Choices, and has also served on the 2019 and 2020 Sydney Taylor Book Awards. You can find her online at www.SylvieJuliet.Shaffer.com

Starla Jean’s resolve to capture the chicken she happens upon in the park (her dad naively promised “if you can catch it, you can keep it” ) is mirrored by emerging readers’ determination to read this title independently- and like Starla Jean, they gleefully succeed with pride.

At 96 pages, Starla Jean kisses the upper page limit of the Geisel Criteria, and not a page is wasted. The longer format is only one of many reasons this book has been a hit with the first and second grade emerging readers in my school library. Kids feel a terrific sense of accomplishment having read a book just shy of a hundred pages, and the book’s standout design, storytelling, word choice, and illustrations work together to pace a reading experience that provides a perfect balance of stamina-building forward momentum, and welcome pauses. The whimsical and appealing illustrations feel both modern and timeless, and provide support for the handful of challenging or un-decodable words that appear throughout the text (for example, “laughing”, “laundry”, “diaper.”) Other tricky words are repeated to help readers conquer them; “treasure” appears early in the story and is later repeated three times within a few sentences as the story winds down, ensuring the next time a reader encounters the word, they’ll likely recognize it.

The first person narration contains a variety of sentence structures and punctuation, along with plenty of dialogue, providing practice to readers still learning to parse these conventions of text. It also breaks the fourth wall, asking readers “Do you remember how I told you…” doing double duty of keeping readers engaged and offering practice at some reading skills beyond decoding: retelling, prediction, inferring. Design, both of individual pages, and the book’s overall aesthetic play a strong hand in its success. A family portrait facing the first chapter’s header introduces the family, hinting at members' personalities. The pops of red against an otherwise muted palette is brilliant and connects Starla Jean (in red boots and a striped long sleeve shirt, paired with a blue jumper) to the chicken’s comb, wattle, legs and tail feathers- tipped blue to match Starla Jean’s jumper) while the red, handwritten, onomatopoeic interjections (bawk, scritch, meow) beg to be read aloud. Although the text could easily have worked as a longer picture book, dividing it into four neat chapters makes it easy for an emerging reader to tackle this all at once, or a bit at a time as best suits their needs and desires. While not a Geisel Award criteria, there are some terrific messages both overt and subtle that are nested (ha!) here too: grit and determination are often rewarding; when something isn’t working for a member of the household, (chicken poop in the house? yikes!) be proactive in seeking a solution; do one’s best to return lost items; Dads can and should take active parenting roles (folding laundry, biking to the park.) Starla Jean is worthy of a Geisel, and I’m hopeful The Real Committee thinks so, too!

"I'm ON It!" Is on-point for Geisel Consideration

Taylor Worley (she/her) is a Youth Services Librarian for Springfield Public Library in Oregon. When not reading, she’s typically gaming, creating something, or collecting bits of nature. You can find her in various online communities at @magpiebricolage, @magpiemakesstuff, or @magpiereadsstuff.

Andrea Tsurumi is so on it with her contribution to the Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! series, “I’m ON It!” In the familiar and inviting style of the established series, Tsurumi excels in telling a cumulative story with minimal text.

When Frog sees Goat up on a tree stump, they are duly impressed. Eager to follow, Frog jumps upon a boulder. Not to be outdone, Goat picks up a tire to be, “...on it AND beside it!” Frog follows again, and on and on the duo goes until they are both, “...on it, along it, above it, inside it, through it, and AROUND it!” When Goat gloats, “I AM SO INTO THIS!” Frog realizes they certainly are not, and lets their tower crash to the pond below. Happily kicking back on a lily pad, Frog croaks, “I am OVER it.” Goat realizes that they, too, are over it, splashing into the pond and alleviating any tensions in the friendship. There is no question that “I’m ON It!” is an exceptional introduction to reading. The illustrations are funny with crisp, bright colors, and the text is approachable and engaging. When considering the specific criteria of the Geisel Award, does “I’m ON It!” still measure up? Absolutely. The Geisel Award criteria require that works provide a “page turning”, “stimulating and successful reading experience” for beginning readers. Tsurumi handily accomplishes this by building a scaffold in both the text and illustrations. Each page turn adds one extra element to Goat and Frog’s competition, with an added bonus of spatial reasoning. “I’m on it! … I’m on it and beside it! … I’m on it and beside it and inside it!” This format also exemplifies the criteria that words be gradually added and frequently repeated for the benefit of the reader. Not only does Goat repeat every element of the competition with each addition, but Frog also echoes Goat. As required by the award criteria, the illustrations clearly “demonstrate the story being told” and effectively “function as keys or clues to the text.” Tsurumi uses clear, medium-weight, black outlines for clean fields of color. The palette is cheerful and clean, with tonal accents to add dimension. Speech bubbles get priority placement, further emphasizing text and directing the reader’s attention. Those that linger on the silly scenes will notice fun details, including a familiar pigeon in flight. With all award requirements met (e.g. at least 24 but not more than 96 pages) and a strong showing in the core criteria, Goat and Frog should certainly be at the table for Geisel Award discussions this year. Regardless of final medals, however, they decidedly deserve a place on your early reader shelves. Let’s hope we see more of this duo in the future!