Beginner Reader

**You can't always judge practice readers by the books reviews, because some people don't understand that some of the little books are for practicing reading and little else.

TINY GOES BACK TO SCHOOL is for beginning readers and it is at the Kindergarten Reading level. It's a book that has just 99 words and sentences like the following:

Tiny is a good dog.
He does what I say.

Watch.

Tiny's story is going to appeal to little children who love dogs. In the story Tiny's boy is proud of him and how obedient Tiny is. Only problem is that Tiny isn't obedient, so his boy decides to take him to The Happy Dog School.

At first it's doggy chaos with the dogs chasing each other and having fun. That is until the dog-master brings out dog treats. THEN Tiny pays attention. In fact, he is soon showing the other dogs how it's done.

Cute humor and simple sentences. Accelerated Reading level: 0.6

~library find ( )

Penguin rebranded its easy readers some time ago; I find it rather confusing to figure out if it's a new title or a reissued one. Also, why can't publishers coordinate their colors for levels? Or their levels, for that matter?

Tiny's unnamed owner tries to show off Tiny's obedience skills, but it looks like Tiny definitely needs to go back to school. When they arrive, Tiny's enthusiasm for the other dogs gets him into trouble. Then the teacher arrives, with a large bag of treats. Tiny quickly remembers all his tricks and teaches the other dogs.

The illustrations didn't really grab me. I do appreciate that they're large spot illustrations set in white space, which makes it a lot easier to locate the text. The text is set predominantly on the left lower corner of the spreads, with an additional few words or short sentence on the right. The pictures just felt kind of bland, not really memorable or integrated with the text.

Verdict: Acceptable filler, especially if you have kids who like dogs. Not a stand-out, but an easy reader collection needs a lot of these solid, mid-range fare for the kids to work their way through.

ISBN: 9780670786077; Published 2014 by Penguin; Borrowed from another library in my consortium; Added to the easy reader backlist to purchase