Sally Lee

The main purpose of the story is to inform young readers about the history of the very popular holiday, Halloween. I enjoyed this book for three reasons. One, I really liked the organization of the book. Everything is labeled and put in order by category. The book includes a table of contents page for easy location of a specific section, a glossary of words that may be new to the reader and even small blurbs at the bottom of pages with word pronunciations. Second, I liked the like show more photographs used as illustration. Actual photographs are always an interesting aspect of picture books. It shows realism and allow the reader to make personal connections to what they are reading, especially for informational books, photographs capture that factual essences. Lastly, I really liked the simplicity of the text. Informational books can try to provide so much information at once that may confuse its younger readers, however in this book, the information provided is very simple but still gives facts about the Holiday. I even learned something new while reading this book. Overall good book. show less

STRUCTURE
This oversized book is at the Second Grade reading level. AR = 2.6

It has 231 words which makes it a nice read for young children who are intimidated by big paragraphs of text. Most pages have 4 lines of text; and I should note that the font is HUGE.

Like most Pebble Plus books you have the text on the left side and full color images on the opposing page; color running to the page edges.

CONTENT
I like this book and think that Sally Lee did a good job. (You should note I'm not a scholar show more on this subject so I took her facts at face value.) She points out that no one really knows how the celebration of Valentine's day began. She explains that some people think it began with St. Valentine --either because he married soldiers secretly in Rome back when it was illegal or because he was killed because he was Christian and the Catholic Church decided to remember him on February 14th.

She follows up with some more lore and then delves into the charming history of how people used to exchange homemade cards to give to those they care about, and how while this is still done, that someone had the idea of making very affordable pre-printed cards.

Good read-aloud. There isn't a ton of text so good for practice reading. The large size makes it good for sharing with groups of children as well as just one or two. show less

The Pebble First Guide to Dinosaurs (ages 4-7) by Sally Lee is a terrific little field guide for budding paleontologist on the prowl in the natural history museum or the classroom. Each double page spread of this diminutive book provides the vital statistics of thirteen plant or meat eating species of dinosaurs with full-color, labeled illustrations depicting the species in its natural habitat, and range maps showing worldwide locations. The text is clear, direct and structured with show more subheadings and bullets to create user-friendly identification non-fiction that is appropriate for even the youngest of readers. Includes a short glossary, bibliography, and web site referral to assist beginning researchers. show less

This is written in more of a traditional biography style. It has a table of contents, a glossary, bibliography, and index. But it's set up like a picture book, with large historical photos and large text for new readers. First graders won't need Mom's help to read this one, and it's a great way to introduce young children to the format of a nonfiction reference book.