From: Sheila Welch <sheilawelch>
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 12:08:31 -0500

Hello!

The name "bridge books" sounds good to me for these transitional, early chapter books. Series certainly have gotten a lot of children in my life started on reading. Our son located a mystery series at the library (I don't know if it's still available anywhere) called THE SECRET SEVEN, etc. many years ago when he was in second grade then he went on to devour nearly everything Beverly Cleary wrote. Our daughter picked an author, Ruth Chew, and read all of her simply, early chapter books about witches and magic. But these are oldies . . .

Our granddaughter read her way through the PEE WEE SCOUT books and Barbara Park's JUNIE B. books. She was still reading these in third grade although she was beyond their reading level. I think she enjoyed the familiar characters and the predictability. She also liked reading a whole book in one short session.

I can think of a few individual titles that fall into this category. Golden Books has its "Road to Reading" Miles Four and Five Chapter Books with each book standing alone although there are a couple that have sequels that may become series within series. Patricia and Frederick McKissack have written a couple of these about a boy named Miami that are very "with it" and filled with realistic language used by African American kids. Ilene Cooper has done at least two for Golden about a boy and his dog named Lucy. My granddaughter enjoyed all of these.

Cricket Books has published two by Barbara Seuling about a boy named Robert: OH NO, IT'S ROBERT and ROBERT AND THE GREAT PEPPERONI (although maybe these are a little hard for "bridge books"). Our granddaughter loved these and decided that Robert should meet Ramona (another of her favorite characters). She even came up with a title for this book: "Oh, No, Robert, It's Ramona."

Sheila Welch Children's Author
Received on Wed 03 Oct 2001 12:08:31 PM CDT