Rating: WORTHY!
Illustrated sweetly by Doug Oglesby, this is part of a series of books aimed at beginning readers, and this one focuses on short vowel sounds. The book set has 100 or so pages divided into eleven books, and begins with a rat trying to steal a piece of cheese. I'm very fond of rats, not so much cats, so I admit to a serious bias here! I have my own The Little Rattuses™ series which is a about halfway through its run before I move on to something else.
Having seen some of those ambitious subway rats on various videos taking a whole slice of pizza with it, I have to say that this is a very fair rat! It's not taking the whole chunk of cheese, just a small piece. Unfortunately, the cat happens to see this. Rats aren't known for their negotiating skills (except in my series!), but everything seems to work out well in the end for all parties.
The second book focuses on the verb 'see' and follows the story again, repeating that word and inviting the child to see everything in each picture. The third set repeats and amplifies this, but focuses on the rat - see the rat! You can't not see a rat. I found this amusing because just yesterday I was watching an episode of the TV series House, a series which has now run its course, but which was popular and usually entertaining in its time. It featured a rat in part of the story. It was clearly a domesticated rat - not a wild one at all - which was to be expected of course.
Anyway, having seen the rat, we move to book four where we see the cat. Book five introduces a new verb, 'can' and book six focuses on person: 'you'. Book 7, focuses on the verb 'look' and the preposition 'at'. Book 9 covers 'and', Book 10 'stop', book 11 'that', and in each book the sentence structure becomes a teensy bit more complex, slowly leading the child into full sentences, questions, observations, and story-telling. "Can the rat stop the cat? Look and see" and so on.
The books are highly structured and repetitive, which helps a child put everything into a clear context, and not just learn the word, but really understand what it means. My kids are way beyond these books now, and this is my first experience of this style of 'book-leaning', so I can't speak from personal experience of using this method, but to me it seems smart and logical, and I commend this as a worthy read.
