ELLIS ISLAND by Elizabeth Carney traces the history of Ellis Island.

Written for fluent readers, the book contains short chapters exploring the history of Ellis Island. Throughout the story, readers will find boxes containing facts, quotes, and key words. Photo captions and labels provide additional information for readers. The book also contains a quiz, glossary, and index.

Librarians will find this short book to be a valuable addition to their nonfiction collection. The many black and white, as well as color photographs will draw the interest of primary grade students. With lots of visuals and easy-to-read text, this National Geographic Readers title would be particularly useful for reluctant readers working on history reports. Use this title along with other nonfiction works in this collection as part of an informational reading, literature circle activity.

Published by National Geographic on April 12, 2016. ARC courtesy of the publisher. ( )

I'm a bit of two minds about National Geographic's historical and biographical easy readers. On the one hand, some of them have been really excellent like Rosa Parks. On the other hand, I still find it difficult to find readers for these more complex nonfiction titles and am skeptical about many of them having an audience that will understand the context.

This is a level 3 National Geographic Kids easy reader, so it's fairly difficult. They recommend them for "fluent" readers. The book is 48 pages long and has chunky paragraphs of text on each page, as well as black and white photos. The author takes the reader through the reasons people came to America, how they were processed through Ellis Island, and what happened to many immigrants afterwards. It also talks about famous immigrants and how Ellis Island became a museum. There are many quick facts mixed into the book, a quiz at the back, picture glossary, and index.

I'm torn about this one and I'm not sure I should have bought it. I like having more diversity in subject and National Geographic does a good job with these, but I am really doubtful that it will find an audience.

Verdict: I'll have to see if it actually checks out.

ISBN: 9781426323423; Published 2016 by National Geographic Kids; Purchased for the library