Jan Slepian (1921–2016)

Super fun book where all ssss sounds are pronounce in a silly matter until the end. The authors did an awesome job of phonic awareness with a relatively wholesome and entertaining story.

This is a silly book about a monster who goes to a restaurant but doesn't seem to be able to tell the waiter what he would like to eat. He relies on his two friends to figure out what he wants and tell the staff. The problem is the staff doesn't much care for the Hungry Thing and children aren't allowed in the restaurant. But the Hungry Thing sneaks them in anyway and they help him get what he wants, and everyone at the restaurant learns a little something about what "fair" means.
This book show more is a great story about acceptance and what fair means. In the Hungry Thing's case, fair means that he needs someone to help him order at a restaurant by clarifying his words to the staff. Not everyone needs this kind of help, but it's okay that the Hungry Thing does. show less

I liked this book for two reasons. First the story was really simple, yet funny. I liked how the author portrayed Bendemolena as a child who loved to help her mom and had good intentions even thought everything went wrong. I also like how at the end the mother didn't yell at Bendemolena for turning the house upside down, but instead she put two holes in the pot and asked Bendemolena to hug her for her hard work. This book was very easy and fun to read. This book definitely pushes readers to show more think what will Bendemolena do next and when will she realize that she can't hear her mother at all. The main idea of this story is that our good intentions sometimes can turn bad but if someone truly appreciate our good intention they will forget the mess that we made and love us for trying to help. I absolutely love reading this story and it would be a great story for first and second graders. show less

A most excellent story of a lonely, rather timid and not-at-all scary dragon, Seidler's book is about finding a place in life – finding purpose. I suppose that's a rather tough thing to do when you're a dragon, especially one not terrifying at all.

Richard Martin has a very simple pen-line drawing style about his illustrations, cartoon-like but quite fantastically engaging. Character-driven. It's a very 1960s-esque book - obviously befittingly since that was when it was made - but it show more conjurs up this great nostalgia for simpler times, when a quick wit were all you needed about you to go by as a book (none of this namby-pamby elaborate Caldecott-winning illustration).

Interestingly it's also a part of a series of books, designed to help kids with pronunciation difficulties. Most books of that order seem unfortunately ham-handed, but I think "The Roaring Dragon," for the most part, managed to stay above that. It's whimsical charm, both in the ridiculous story and Martin's fine drawings, seems to win out in the end. show less