From: cv <vollmeca>
Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 20:47:48 -0600

Happy Holiday Season.

I have been reading these posts and have been waiting for the following series to be mentioned......"The Cheetah Girls" by Deborah Gregory
(written before the Disney movie I believe.....as my students keep saying, "Are these the real Cheetah Girls?" ) "Kid Caramel (sp?) by Ferguson, a kid detective. Both feature African-American main characters as well as Hispanic and mixed if I remember correctly. The kids at my school keep asking for more and I am hoping both authors will continue to write. I have tried to promote the Julian books by Ann Cameron but they don't seen to have a great appeal to most of my kids. The Logan family series by Mildred Taylor is wonderful, but too difficult for many of my students.

Junie B. Jones is by far the most popular. Judy Moody is moving in. Arthur, Henry and Mudge, Nate the Great, Boxcar Children, Little Bill, Horrible Harry, all are checked out on a regular basis and it is very difficult to keep Captain Underpants in the library. Sometimes he is gone before he has even been checked in!! Ramona does well with third and fourth graders. I keep trying to encourage the reading of the Time Warp Trio and now know there is a cartoon based on them. But I think part of the difficulty with them is that for readers to catch the humor and understand the plot, they need to have a basic knowledge of the timeframe (medieval days, pirates, westerns, cavemen etc, ) and sadly
(to my way of thinking) many of my students don't.

I would love to see more series written with a wider array of family
/ethnic backgrounds represented. Series books are part of a reader's natural development I think. It is therefore important that all groups are represented in this format. IMHO

Chris Vollmer Browning School Librarian Milwaukee, WI vollmeca at mail.milwaukee.k12.wi.us

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose.................." George Bernard Shaw
Received on Sat 26 Nov 2005 08:47:48 PM CST