A beach for Albert

PreS-Gr 1-In NOT Scared, Albert and Wanda go to an amusement park, but he refuses to go on any ride that goes left, right, up, down, across, through, or around. He finally agrees to go on the train, but they end up in the wrong line and get on the roller coaster, which causes Albert to exclaim, "I love it!" In the second book, when "the people" go to the seaside, the mice siblings decide to make a beach in the sandbox. They already have sand and sun, but need water. Albert decides to make a bowl into a pool but it is taking too long to fill it with his small pail. He then tries another pail and a toy dump truck, but neither works. Finally, Wanda comes up with an idea and she invites many friends. When they all help, the pool is filled quickly. This is a good resource for capacity and problem solving. With conversational texts that are easy to understand and illustrations that are child-friendly and colorful, these books are educational without being obvious. Teachers can easily incorporate them into lessons.-Stephanie Farnlacher, Trace Crossings Elementary School, Hoover, AL (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In these purposive installments, mouse siblings Albert and Wanda learn about direction through rides at an "amousement park" and about capacity when they try to fill a bowl in the sandbox with water. Scared adequately illustrates directional vocabulary, while Beach's elucidation of volume is fairly vague. Soft illustrations of friendly mice welcome readers to the concept lessons. Two activity pages are appended. [Review covers these Mouse Math titles: Albert Is NOT Scared and A Beach for Albert.] (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.