Run, Mo, run!

Mo has played football, baseball, basketball, and soccer--now he's running track. Mo, Jenna, and Dov will be a team in a relay race after school, so they practice passing their baton to one another after lunch, Mo pocketing his jelly doughnut to eat later. They use Jenna's straw for the baton, and try as he might, Mo cannot maintain his grip on it. Later on, Mo finds the straw a distraction while in class. After school the track meet commences, and Mo stands close enough to the long jump that his friend Fran crashes into him, smashing the doughnut in his pocket. Mo happily eats the messy sweet treat, and then it's time for the relay race, which Mo is anchoring. Their opponents drop the baton just as Jenna hands it to Mo, and thanks to the jelly all over his hand, he holds on all the way to the finish line! In Ricks' friendly illustrations, Mo and Jenna both have brown skin and Afro-textured hair while Dov and Fran present White; their classmates are diverse. This fourth series entry is, like its predecessors, a great book to help emerging readers use context clues to infer words' meanings. It will also help readers recognize the beginning, middle, and ending sounds of words--during class, the children practice AT words such as CAT and MAT, not to mention BATon. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-12-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.) A solid addition to the early-reader shelf. (Early reader. 5-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.