Matt Sims

I had mixed feelings about this book after reading it. I liked the author’s writing because it was very simplistic which is good for a transitional chapter book. This book is a “Level 1” book that focuses on one-syllable words with short vowels, so students can ease into reading chapter books with beginner words and short sentences. I also liked that this book included a significant amount of dialogue, and that the dialogue was strictly between three people. Those three characters were also the only ones mentioned in the book; having a limited amount of characters for the reader to focus on makes for an easily comprehensible story for young readers. The only aspect that I disliked about this book was the illustrations because they were dull and somewhat messy. All pictures included in the book were black and white, with blank ink and white backgrounds. The drawings were very sketch-like which I felt made the pictures seem cluttered and not as appealing to the eye as colorful, precise illustrations would be. The big idea of this book is to invite readers to follow the story of a summer adventure to Tuck Dam.… (more)