Being safe

Gr 1-2-The book offers safety tips for home, school, and play. It is a curriculum-driven title that is part of a series designed especially for parents and teachers to participate in a shared reading experience with a child. The adult reads the more advanced text on the left-hand page, followed by the child reading the text opposite. Unfortunately, the language is uninspiring and the photos are unappealing. The "Parent's Introduction" states that "Reading aloud is one of the most important activities parents can share with their child to assist their reading development." They would be better served by sharing Peggy Rathmann's Officer Buckle and Gloria (Putnam, 1995), discussing all the safety tips, and creating new ones.-Pamela K. Bomboy, Chesterfield County Public Schools, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Each left-hand page, or parent's text, offers basic safety advice that's corroborated by the facing page's relatively simple child's text. The advice is certainly sound, and the color photos of kids don't have the staged quality typical of children's advice manuals. Unfortunately, although the shared reading concept has potential, the book is poorly organized, and the child's text often seems redundant. From HORN BOOK Spring 2004, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.