Patricia J. MurphyReviews

My favorite plotline was Sue's alcoholic aunt. She sure seems to be having fun except when she's hungover.

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I would rate this pattern book 4 out of 5 stars. I used this book with a Kindergarten student. My student understood and read along to the pull pages. However, I think the first push example- a hammer into a nail is weak.The shopping cart would have been a stronger, more relatable first example that would have better helped my student understand a push. The hammer threw my kids off He was confused. Overall, the pattern was clear and he caught on to the pull section.

Pioneering was unpredictable and hard work. This is evident while reading this book. Complete with dates and non-fictional facts, this story is very informative. I did enjoy learning some aspects of pioneer living. However, I did feel that certain parts of the text were a bit mature for the intended age group.

This short book is a fun read for students to learn about specific actions. There are several things in the book that can be pushed or that move back and forth. It also encourages memorization, as the actions are repeated throughout the book.

This book encourages students to practice simple tasks. In the book there are multiple examples of things that can be either pushed, pulled, or both. It is an easy ready focusing on specific words. The task of push and pull is repeated over the course of the book.

I gave this book a 4/5 because I feel that this book is great at developing a predictable pattern of the repeated words "push and pull" effectively throughout the book. The images support the text by demonstrating children pushing objects such as elevator buttons followed by the word "push". The images and repeated words make it easy for new readers such as young children or English language learners to understand what the words "push" and "pull" mean as represented by actions. The action-word correspondence will help those developing readers make sense of the text.

I think that this book is a great tool to use with ELL students. This book utilizes real photographs and demonstrates daily routines or motions that we do. For example, pushing the buttons on an elevator or pushing a swing. This book also utilizes large print and simple syntactic structure which is excellent when using it with ELL students, since smaller print and complex syntax may be difficult for them to engage in reading. The text and photograph combination really serves as a tool because those students may not know the English language, but because such combination exists in this book, students are encouraged to really learn the English language. I actually tried this book with my ELL student just to get an understanding of her reading level. She flew through this book and completely understood it, but she did mention that the pictures helped her create meaning.

This book is an informational/expository text about how the wind affects the weather and where different atmosphere winds come from. This is a good book for a guided reading lesson with an advanced reader because it uses many high-level scientific words and complex syntax. The information includes tons of descriptive attributes, cause/effect, and characteristic events which may be slightly difficult for a child at a high level to follow along to. Guidance could be used to help the reader better comprehend the text and its details by asking questions.

Heel interessant boek, en voor kinderen waarbij het echt gebeurd ook heel erg belangrijk denk ik dat ze weten wat er allemaal kan gaan gebeuren.

C

I'm not a big fan of non-fiction, however this story kept my attention the whole way through. I loved how the author, Patricia Murphy inserted interesting facts and real pictures of pioneer life into the historical fiction story of a pioneer girl. Having fiction alongside non-fiction, made me feel like I was looking into the character Olivia's, real life. That being said, it felt a little too closely related to the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. The typical pioneer girl writing a diary while traveling with her caring Ma and bearded Pa who played the fiddle at night, seemed all too familiar and unoriginal.

Murphy did a good job at portraying the difficult journey pioneers faced during their long travels across the Oregon Trail. The first person point of view could have been played upon more though, as Olivia only vaguely mentions people dying, but didn't seem to be greatly affected by these misfortunes. Having a serious hardship or two of her own would have allowed the reader to feel more sympathy and understanding of pioneer life long ago.

Erik is going to his first soccer practice. Join him as he finds out how to play for the team. DK level 1 Beginning to read

Illustrator Study: David Diaz

Themes: Observation, Nature, Early Vocab, ELD

Activity: Do a Look! Walk of your own after reading this book and have kids create their own Look! Books simple with words and illustrations.

Nature; foreshadowing - lovely illustrations½

Gorgeous, colorful oversized illustrations and minimal text make this a great choice for storytime. A big hit with my preschool and family storytimes.

Out on a walk with his mother, a young boy points out a grasshopper, saying: "Mama, Look!" This becomes the refrain of the book, as the grasshopper's children in turn point out an ant, the ant's children point out a butterfly, and so on. The chain of observation and delight continues, as each creature that is observed is in turn the one observing, until finally things come full circle, and return to the human mother and child.

Although in sympathy with the purpose of Mama, Look!, as set out in the author's afterword - apparently it is meant to provoke readers to take a closer look at the natural world around them - somehow the book itself just didn't impress me greatly. This is less of a story than a series of encounters, each presented in the same way, textually speaking. What saves the book (and my rating of it), are David Diaz's beautiful illustrations, with their lush color and folk-art sensibility. Recommended primarily to Diaz fans, although those looking for very basic stories about appreciating the natural world might also want to take a look.

an informative book about the aspects of pushing and pulling and how we use those motions all the time in everyday life
4 books

When I first saw these advertised, I knew they would be huge hits among my patrons. My kids absolutely love nonfiction/fiction hybrids and DK is well-known for picking high-interest topics. I read this as a preparation for my book club, since one of the kids had expressed an interest in horses.

The framing story is about a girl named Emma who, along with her older sister Amanda, absolutely love horses. Emma is thrilled that she can finally join the Horse Club at school. With Amanda as president, she's sure they can come up with some great ideas - and they do! After a lot of hard work, they're able to take the whole club to horse camp over winter break. Once there, Emma finds out it's not exactly as she'd imagined; she has a frightening experience with her horse and her older sister has started pulling away from her to have her own friends and interests. But with lots of hard work and some last-minute luck, everything works out and Emma and Amanda come out on top in the end.

The story is interspersed with nonfiction segments about horses and photographs. These include instructions on saddling a horse, parts of the horse, information about gymkhanas, and more. The story ends with a spread on "Help a Horse" which is designed to look like a website. No web address is given, but it appears to be referring to "Help a Horse Day". At least, that's the closest thing a quick online search got me. There's a list of questions about the story, instructions on starting your own club, and a glossary.

Verdict: The story is clunky in places and the emphasis on Emma's special connection with her horse and the perfect ending are pure wish-fulfillment for horse-loving readers, but that's what this is all about! It's not great literature, but it will certainly capture the interest of readers who love horses and want to dream about riding or owning their own. Certain to be a popular title, this is available in both an affordable hardcover and sturdy paperback. Highly recommended.

ISBN: 9781465418111; Published 2014 by DK; Purchased for the library

This book explains what police officers do and what a police station looks like without getting into gruesome details.
3-5
Pierce County Library System

Summary: This book is an informational text that explains the different aspects of divorce and separation. The author explains how a child might feel, what divorce looks like, how families are effected, and what a child's new family may look like.

Evaluation/Argument: I think that the author did a wonderful job of addressing this very serious issues in such a way that it was not overwhelming for children. I really liked how the words divorce and separation were in bold text every time that they were on a page. This is very useful for young readers because as they see the word more they will be able to identify it more quickly and be able to recognize it on their own eventually. The real photographs in the text will help readers to identify more with the people in the pictures on the pages. Children whose parents are going through a divorce or separation will be able to fee like they are not alone in the situation. There was some great advice and tips at the end of the book that readers will find useful as they struggle through this situation. The glossary is very beneficial as well so that students can look up the definition of words that they may not know. The author did a great job of addressing a more difficult issue, especially for young children.
The central message of the book was to show readers the difficulties of divorce and separation, but give them different ways that they are able to get through it.

Review: This is a great beginners reading book for children. It tells a story but at the same time gives a history lesson on pioneers. There are great illustrations that go along with the story.

Summary: This children's book is about a family that is traveling on the Oregon trail. It talks about the journey that they make and the obstacles that they go through. Although the trail is very hard to travel, the families some how make it fun and throw parties where they sing and dance with each other. They finally make it to their destination and begin their new life in Oregon.

Argument: I really enjoyed reading this story. I really liked how on every page there is a little box that has real facts about the history of the Oregon trail. The facts are very interesting and have real pictures of wagons and families that traveled on the trail. There is also a facts sheet at the end of the book and an index.
I think that the lesson of this story is to teach children about the Oregon trail and the history about it.

In my opinion, I think “Journey of a Pioneer” is an excellent book. The first reason I like the book is because it describes the journey of a pioneer family through the diary of a young girl. In the story, Olivia Clark and her family are moving from Missouri to Oregon in order to own more land to farm more crops. The way the story is written, it takes the reader on the journey with Olivia and her family as they travel from one location to the next. Also, the different scenarios that happen in the story, relate to real life events that actually occurred in late 1845. Olivia goes into detail about what her family is packing for the trip to Oregon, which trails they will travel, and what they anticipate when they arrive at their destination. An example would be when Olivia and her family are packing to get ready for their adventure. “We’ve been selling our furniture and anything else that won’t fit in our wagon. Ma has filled large barrels with food and packed our cooking tools, china, and bedding into a trunk. I’ve packed my doll, Johanna.” Olivia learns to appreciate the opportunity her family is taking by moving to a different part of the country. She wants her family to be happy in the new location. The big idea of the story is that even if you do not think you will enjoy a new adventure of moving with your family, it will probably end up being a great experience both for you and your family.

This DK Reader is at the high 2nd Grade reading level.

This means that BUGS AND US has more complicated concepts, but still features a large font, and less text per page than you would get at higher levels.

Here's the sample text from one page:

Dragonflies eat 300 to 400 mosquitoes a day.
Praying mantises and green lacewings feast
on insects, large and small. But, soon, other
animals will eat them!

I like the approach that DK and Patricia Murphy takes with this material. The book begins by admitting that bugs do bug us. It then goes on to show though that our lives are dependent upon bugs. That they not only make honey and silk, but they pollinate our crops, and actually provide pest control by eating even peskier bugs. Not to mention that they can be food for people.

One diagram that labels the parts of insects. Most photos are interesting, although there is one or two are a bit muddy.

A nice introduction.½

This book talks about the things that make you have a positive self-esteem about yourself when you stay happy and be happy.

Source: Pierce College
Ages: 5-6