Librarian's Complete Guide To Involving Parents Through Children's Literature »

ANTHONY D. FREDERICKS has written more than 20 books for Teacher Ideas Press. A former reading specialist and classroom teacher, he is currently professor of education, York College, York, Pennsylvania. Tony is the author of more than 65 teacher resource books, over 30 award-winning children's books, and several trade books on effective teaching.

Getting parents to participate in their child's education is easy with these take-home reproducibles! This book provides a single-source guide to selected reading and extension activities for grade levels K-6. Each activity sheet includes a summary of a book, discussion questions, and a list of engaging learning projects for adults and children. The activities are designed to increase discussion, build reading skills, and develop comprehension. More than 100 titles of quality children's literature are featured. Teachers will love this unique way to promote reading, and it's great PR for the library. A must for school and public libraries!

School Library Journal

This book's stated purpose is to help librarians encourage parents to take an active role in their children's literacy growth, but it seems to miss the mark as far as its intended use. The author provides 101 photocopy-ready activity sheets that relate to children's literature favorites. While avoiding the use of prizes or rewards, Fredericks offers suggestions to public and school librarians on how to encourage families to use these sheets, each of which includes a story summary, discussion questions, activities, and related books. Suggested activities vary from recipes to writing to the author. Unfortunately, the activities are not always age appropriate. For instance, one suggestion after reading Katherine Paterson's mature chapter book, Jacob Have I Loved (HarperCollins, 1980) is to create a clay model of Rass Island and place plastic figures on it. Conversely, for Judith Viorst's much less sophisticated picture book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (S&S, 1972), the activities suggested all involve much higher-order skills: creating a descriptive brochure about Australia, writing an alternative version of the story, acting as an advice columnist and suggesting strategies to Alexander, or interviewing an adult about a bad day and sharing the findings. This problem could frustrate parents and children. For that reason, and because I think these well-intentioned activity sheets might smack too much of dreaded worksheets, I question Frederick's premise. Still, the book has some good ideas, especially the section called "Promoting the Literature Bond," which offers librarians ideas for promoting parent involvement throughout the year. Despite the shortcomings of the activity sheets for parents, some of the suggested activities might be useful for teachers and librarians to extend and enhance stories read in class.--Patricia N. McClune, Conestoga Valley School District, Lancaster, PA