Jean Bethell

I snagged this at the library book sale last year and finally got around to reading it. I figured it would be good for a laugh, and it was... kind of. However, most of this book was just dreadfully tedious. My favorite parts were looking for the Barbie merchandise plugs and learning Barbie's last name (Roberts, if you were wondering).

I'm convinced that the person who wrote this thing hated Barbie and availed herself of every opportunity to take not-so-subtle digs at Barbie's intelligence. show more For example, in the perennial classic titled "Barbie's Birthday," Barbie philosophically muses, "Tomorrow she would be a whole 365 days older than she was today. That seemed strange, but that was the way it would be."

Indeed, Barbie. Indeed. show less

The Monkey in the Rocket, written by Jean Bethell and illustrated by Sergio Leone, is a story based on the real-life event of the first monkey launched into space. It’s an “easy reader” with repetitive words meant to help a child learn to read on their own.

This book would be classified as multimodal, since the pictures give the reader information that is missing from the text, such as when Doctor Bob listens to the monkeys’ heartbeats. The text reads “This is what Doctor Bob does show more to Sam” while the picture shows Doctor Bob placing his stethoscope to Sam’s chest.

The illustrations are in cartoon style with the humans, animals, and objects having realistic but simplified features. The drawings are kept simple, just black pencil-sketch lines sporadically highlighted with bright yellow. This is meant to make the drawings entertaining, but not too distracting, so the child can focus on the text.

The Monkey in the Rocket is a fun way to not only learn about the first monkey in space, but also an entertaining introduction to the joy of silent reading. show less

I was excited to find this particular book because it's a book from the early Barbie years. It gets many bonus points because Barbie isn't blonde, and it's just exciting to have older books. Barbie is babysitting two troublesome twins, and trying to write a story for homework. Finally, after two hours of chasing the twins around, she gets them to bed- and writes her story about her night's adventures!

We recently unearthed 15 boxes of books in my dad's old storage building. They are all from the 1970s and earlier. Some of them are my books from childhood, so I have to hang on to a few of them. This is one that I remember enjoying. From the book:

"This light-hearted spoof on the 'cowboy western' will please even the book-shy youngster. Clyde is a slapstick, offbeat, lovable hero, and his triumphant encounter with the 'bad guys' will tickle young readers. A real "yarn"--told in fewer than show more 150 words." show less