Peter Roop

Nonfiction easy readers are a trend that I absolutely get behind. They're super popular with both kids and parents and introduce beginning readers to a wider range of books, rather than just the typical odd couple friendship fiction of traditional easy readers.

Peter and Connie Roop, who have been authoring beginning chapters and easy readers for years, have adapted quite well to the new, photograph-illustrated model of easy readers.

Each page is arranged in two horizontal blocks. The top show more shows a dolphin photograph, matched by the simple text against a white background on the bottom half of the spread. Each side of the page has 1-2 short sentences. There is a lot of unused white space around the text and I felt the font could have been larger, especially since this is supposed to be the easiest reader level (although it's not aimed at emergent readers). I did appreciate that the photographs were laid out in conjunction with the text, so when it says "The pod swims fast. The dolphins jump into the air." the reader sees a photo of leaping dolphins.

The only thing that gave me pause was that in some of the pictures it appeared to me that it was a different baby dolphin, almost as big as the mother, although it's supposed to be a story of a baby dolphin's first day. However, some of the photos were unclear due to the poor binding, which gobbled up a lot of the gutter of the images. There's a "meet the expert" section at the back, which must be meant to be read aloud or by the parents. It's not really clear exactly what part the "expert" plays in the book, but I think these readers from the American Museum of Natural History have various museum staff vet them for accuracy.

Verdict: This isn't as eye-catching as, say, National Geographic Readers, but they can be quite busy for a beginning reader who needs less distraction. Dolphins are a popular topic and this is a serviceable selection that's reasonably well-written and has nice photographs. Recommended if you are purchasing additional nonfiction easy readers.

ISBN: 9781402777844; Published 2011 by Sterling/Prebound by Penworthy; Borrowed from another library in my consortium show less

Grade Level: Primary
Genre: Historical Fiction
Summary: Little Blaze’s older brother, Curly Bear is chosen to lead the buffalo in a hunt that lures them to run off a cliff to their death. Little Blaze is angry that he was not chosen to the lead the buffalo because he is much faster than his brother. Little Blaze must overcome this anger and be very courageous when the hunt goes wrong and his brother’s life is in danger.
Evaluation: This book will keep readers on the edge of their seats. It show more helps readers understand Native American culture and the importance of the buffalo. Through the actions in this story it is very clear that the buffalo were very important to their survival, and this story helps explain one of the ways Indians hunted food to stay alive. The illustrations in this book are beautiful and capture a great amount of detail. show less

This book is about Little Blaze, a little Native American boy who wants to lead the buffalo jump a prehistoric hunting method of driving the buffalo herd over a cliff. Little Blaze’s brother Curly Bear was chosen by his father to lead this buffalo jump, and Little Blaze was upset because he thought he should be leading it. His job was only to stay behind the stacked stones and help frighten the buffalo. The day of the buffalo jump finally came and Curly Bear was running in with the show more buffalos right behind him. Little Blaze realized that he was not too ahead and the buffalos were gonna run over him. He decided to run and help his brother. He was able to carry him before he fell over and they jumped over the edge of the cliff. They landed on a small ledge and all the buffalo crashed down below. That night after eating boiled buffalo ribs, Little Blaze’s father told him he was proud of the courageous deed he did today and changed his name to Charging Bull. I enjoyed this book and had never actually heard of buffalo jumping before. show less

I thought this book jumped around a lot. It introduces the different famous animals in a timeline order. I don't feel like the author gives enough information about each animal. I would need to go further to really study it.

I believe children would like this for recreational reading, but I am not sure that it could be used in a classroom setting.