Running Head: BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviews
Kelly Hauke
Ivy Tech Community College

BOOK REVIEWS

For the purpose of this assignment, I will be reviewing three books. The first is Little Critter
Colors, the second is Go, Lightening, Go! And the third is Cliffords Birthday Party.
Little Critter Colors by Mercer Mayer is a board book. It is 22 pages long and features 11
different colors. Each page has many different everyday items in a particular color and, with
proper questioning; a child can be encouraged to think of other items which have the same color
as the one shown. The child can also use the simple one word description, the color, to work on
letter recognition. Only potential problem, with this book, is one of the colors mentioned is
Violet. It is not a common color and looks very much like the Purple shown. Overall, I feel, this
is a good book for a prereader.
Go, Lightening, Go!, is a level one Reading Adventures. It is 16 pages long and is a counting
book. It features very short sentences, for example, He saw four clouds in the sky (Scollon &
Petrower, 2013, p. 10). In addition to the sentences, picking out specific colors and/ or asking
why or what questions could be used. It is a good book for a beginning reader to read on
their own or a prereader to read with adults or older siblings.
Cliffordss Birthday Party is 28 pages long and features Americas favorite big red dog,
Clifford. This is definitely a book for a late kindergartner or first grader self-reader, depending
on reading ability. The sentence structure is more difficult to read than that of Go, Lightening,
Go! However, it could be a great book for a prereader, as you can ask what and why questions,
ask the child to point out specific letters, colors, things and words.
In conclusion, I feel these books give a good example of three different stages in a childs
literacy development, prereader, early self-reader and more mature self-reader, but all of these
can keep the prereader interested and motivated.

BOOK REVIEWS

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References

Bridwell, N. (1988). Clifford's birthday party. New York: Scholastic.

Mayer, M. (2011). Little critter colors. New York, NY: Sterling Children's Books.
Scollon, B., & Petrower, S. (2013). Go, Lightning, go! New York: Disney Press.