From: Mary Ann Scheuer <greatkidbooks_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2012 21:36:27 -0700

We love, love the *Katie Woo* series for beginning readers! It's a fantastic series for early 2nd graders, dealing with many of the friendship issues they're seeing every day. Our students can relate to Katie and her friends.

We also have a lot of fun with Anastasia Suen's *Robot and Rico * series (also a Capstone publication), featuring a young Latino boy with great energy. This is written at a 1st grade level, but the zany cartoon illustrations and humor means that struggling 3rd graders are fine reading them. That "cool" factor is a big element in reaching struggling readers.

Another interesting beginning reader for slightly older readers (late 2nd grade, early 3rd grade) is Toon Book's Shark King , which spins a variation of the Hawaiian folktale of the shark-king in comic book form.

I definitely agree with you that we need more beginning readers with protagonists of color. But it's important to spread the word about the ones out there that are really working well with our students.

-- Mary Ann Scheuer Librarian Emerson School, Berkeley * what I'm reading now: **The Great Unexpected, by Sharon Creech** *

check out my blog to find new books to read with your kids! *Great Kid Books * http://greatkidbooks.blogspot.com
Received on Thu 18 Oct 2012 09:36:27 PM CDT