CCBC-Net Archives

[CCBC-Net] Get on Board!

From: Steward, Celeste <csteward>
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 08:39:56 -0700

I just bought some of the lap-sized board books for our branches...and saw them as they came through processing. I wondered about the size and if branch staff may not look kindly on them because they won't fit on the shelf or wherever they display board books.
  On the other hand, parents and babies may like them for the very reason you state--larger artwork, large font. It's a matter of personal preference. We have the smaller size board books too for on the go babies in strollers.
  In the end, these are for very young children to explore and be introduced to reading. Whatever the library can provide in terms of early literacy, the better for all.

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From: ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu on behalf of Elliott BatTzedek Sent: Fri 9/19/2008 10:34 AM To: ccbc-net, Subscribers of Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Get on Board!




Just this week my office received a new bilingual Eric Carle board book, Colors/Colores. Each page has an object in the featured color, printed on a tab that slides back and forth, revealing either the color name in English or the color name in Spanish. The pages and sliders are very sturdy and easy to move, making it actually interactive even for very young kids.

Less successful, for our purposes in pre-k, are books in the Carle "My Very First Book of" series. These have half pages with a picture on one half and the name of the object pictured on the other. These includes words, colors, numbers, animal homes, and others. The objects and their corresponding labels are printed on different pages, inviting children to flip through the books to match the object and label. In practice, kids have had a hard time holding the books open enough to have the pages lay flat enough to play. More importantly, there is no "self-check" feature built in, so pre-readers (surely the intended audience based on the content) don't actually know if they have matched correctly, so don't gain the exposure to seeing a word they know in print. This could have been added so easily with color bars, small matching color dots, etc.

I also really love the new "lap book" sized board books that Harcourt has been putting out. These are all adaptations of picture books (so far), but work better than small board books by keeping the art large and not having to reduce the print size so dramatically. Has anyone used these in library settings yet?

Elliott batTzedek Curriculum and Collections Development Children's Literacy Initiative
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Received on Sun 21 Sep 2008 10:39:56 AM CDT