Library Mama

Puff Flies by Sally Grindley. Illustrated by Valentina Medicino.
Queen Ella’s Feet by Sally Grindley. Illustrated by Sandra Aguilar.

I’m always on the lookout for easy readers that work for my smart dyslexic boy. He needs books that introduce new sounds and words slowly while retaining his interest, and many series, alas, do only one or the other of these. These two books from the My Phonics Readers series fit the bill perfectly. (The cover images from my usual source, my library catalog, clearly showed preliminary art, and I'm just noticing that the Puff Flies image from Amazon shows a different series name. I have no real answer for this one.) They’re both rated as Level 3, which seems to mean introducing vowel blends, a different one for each book. The back has a key of the phonemes used in the book, with spelling and pronunciation guide, and all non-phonetic words are bolded. Most of these are what my son’s school calls sight words, those most commonly used words like "was" or "where" that ought to be simple yet often aren’t. Both stories are funny, while working within the tight constraints of one or two short sentences a page, super-simple words, and featuring the same one and only one vowel blend on every page. In Puff Flies, a chubby baby dragon uses a kind witch’s spell for his first short flight, with lots of “spied” and “replied” before he gets it on his own. Dragons are always a hit, and cute baby ones are just as good as the deadly type. In Queen Ella’s Feet, poor Queen Ella’s feet are sticking out from under her blanket. King Alex asks for a sheet to cover them up, but the maid mishears, and goes seeking a sheep. In both of these, the story and bright art came together to make a book attractive enough that the two-year-old wanted them every day, too. As far as I can tell, Level 3 is as high as the My Phonics Readers goes, which is a pity.

I’m sharing this post with the Carnival for New Readers over at Perogies and Gyoza.

Hiro Dragon Warrior by Bobbie JG Weiss and David Cody Weis. Pictures by Robbie Short. It might not be perfect for every child, or even every little boy, but here is a book that is, according to my son, exactly perfect for him. It is an easy reader, comic-book style, featuring young dragons learning martial arts and using them to rescue stolen treasure. There are two volumes out right now; alas, just old enough that it doesn’t look like more will be published. Still, easy readers in this particular category – high interest for boys without media tie-ins – are hard to come by. This was enough of a find for us to buy both the books, rather than just borrowing from the library as we usually do.