From Cover to Cover (13 page)

S
ENTENCE
L
ENGTH

Children who are concentrating more on decoding the words than on the words’ meaning need short, declarative sentences, so that they haven’t forgotten the beginning of the sentence by the time they reach the end of it. Sentences made up of five words are ideal for children just beginning to read, but those who are gaining skill and confidence can handle up to ten words per sentence. Even for more competent young readers, however, look for sentences of alternating lengths. An author may, for example, follow a long sentence by a succession of short sentences, as Dori Chaconas does in
Cork & Fuzz
:

Occasionally longer sentences can be used successfully, if they can be broken up naturally into lines of shorter length as in this sentence from
Little Bear
:

Longer sentences can also work when a writer builds textual context using repetition, as Arnold Lobel did in the passage quoted earlier from
Frog and Toad Are Friends
or when a writer uses rhyme, as Dr. Seuss did in
The Cat in the Hat
. Both these devices serve to make the text more predictable and therefore easier to read.

In easy readers, sentence length and structure are just as important as the vocabulary used to tell the story. When you evaluate this type of book, look at the sentences. How many words appear in them? If long sentences are used, are they preceded or followed by short ones? Do you notice a lot of commas in the text? If so, this is often an indication of dependent clauses or extra information that makes the text harder to read. “Sam, a mean dog, bit my sister” is much more difficult to read than “Sam was a mean dog. He bit my sister.”

P
LOT

Beyond the constraints of language, easy readers fall into a broad range of categories, including nonfiction, folklore, poetry, science fiction, mysteries, historical fiction, animal fantasies, and realistic fiction, although the latter two make up the majority of what has been published to date.

The first page or two of an easy reader is especially important because it must establish the context and stir children’s interest enough to draw them into the story.

Ruth Horowitz uses simple words and short sentences to introduce characters and setting in the opening two pages of
Breakout at the Bug Lab
:

Note the word choices and sentence structure the author uses to describe an unfamiliar setting and an unusual character. She succeeds in making the text accessible by beginning with easy words and sentences that are sure to pique the interest of young children. This gives young readers the confidence they need to keep reading. Look closely at the first two or three pages of an easy reader as you evaluate it. Does it begin by using short sentences and simple concepts? Does it establish the setting and introduce the subject or characters quickly? Is it likely to make children want to turn the pages and keep reading?

Most stories in easy readers involve two or three main characters and have fast-moving plots with clear, direct action. Descriptive passages and internal motives are kept to a minimum. Many follow the pattern established by the I Can Read series and break the story up into four to six chapters. When this is done, chapters should be episodic; in other words, the action started at the beginning of a chapter is completed—brought to some sort of resolution—at the end of the chapter. Each chapter then functions as a short story; and taken as a whole, all the chapters that make up one book have characters and setting in common.

Each of the four chapters in Minarik’s
Little Bear
deals with the playful interactions between a mother bear and her small son. In chapter 1, Little Bear wants to go out to play in the snow, but he keeps returning to tell his mother he is cold and needs something warm to put on. She gives him a hat, a coat, and a pair of snow pants before
suggesting he remove them all and wear his own nice warm fur coat outside. In chapter 2, Little Bear prepares a special birthday soup for himself as a succession of guests arrives for his party. Each one asks him what he is cooking, giving him an opportunity to describe repeatedly the wonders of birthday soup before Mother Bear comes home with a surprise birthday cake. In both of these chapters, episodes are built on a predictable accumulation of repeated actions that pave the way for a satisfying surprise ending. The character of an inventive and slightly dependent Little Bear is firmly established through his interactions with his patient, loving mother. After the first two chapters, young readers will feel familiar enough with the characters of Little Bear and his mother so that they can easily follow the two final chapters that break away from the predictable pattern of repetition. Like the first two chapters, chapters 3 and 4 center on Little Bear’s actions, which elicit calm and satisfying reactions from his mother.

To evaluate the storyline in an easy reader, look at each double-page spread and notice what happens. There should be some action on every page. Are action verbs used to move the plot along? Are characters developed through interaction? Does the author use repeated actions in a creative way? Are surprises balanced with predictable elements?

I
LLUSTRATIONS

Pictures in easy readers appear on every double-page spread, and they generally vary in size from page to page. In addition to illustrating the story, they can give essential clues to help out with words or concepts that young readers may find difficult. When Cynthia Rylant tells us in
Henry and Mudge: The First Book
that the puppy Mudge grew out of seven collars in a row, artist Suçie Stevenson illustrates the seven collars and shows them in succession. This single illustration gives clues about the word “collar” and the concepts “grew out of” and “in a row.” It also suggests just how big the
tiny puppy grew to be so that readers are prepared for a surprise when they see and read about the huge dog Mudge on the following page.

DESIGN

Because easy readers must meet the physical as well as intellectual needs of children who are learning to read, it is especially important to pay attention to design factors such as size of typeface, line length, space between words, space between lines, number of lines per page, amount of white space per page, and placement of illustrations.

S
IZE OF
T
YPEFACE

Typography has its own system of measurement based on
points
. A point is a little less than 1/72 of an inch. Most books for adults are set in typeface that measures 10 or 12 points in height. The standard size typeface for beginning readers is 18 points.

L
INE
L
ENGTH

By line length we mean the number of words per line. A line may be a complete sentence, or it may be a phrase. Beginning readers should have lines between two and ten words in length. The longer the line, the more difficult it is for children to read. When you look at lines, you should also pay attention to where new sentences begin. New sentences beginning at the end of a line are harder for children to read than those that start at the beginning of a line. Line breaks usually come at a natural place to pause, and the right margins are not justified.

S
PACE
B
ETWEEN
W
ORDS

For inexperienced readers the space between words is just as important as the period at the end of the sentence is for experienced readers. They “read” the space as an indication of where one word ends and the next word begins. Spaces between words should be wide and distinct.

S
PACE
B
ETWEEN
L
INES

There should be plenty of space between lines (
leading
, so called because old typesetting technology used strips of lead between the lines of type) in beginning readers so that a child can easily keep his or her place in a line without wandering down into the next line. The more space between lines, the easier the text is to read. Most often, leading is equal to the type size—that is, if the type size is 18 point, there are 18 points of space between lines.

N
UMBER OF
L
INES PER
P
AGE

Due to illustrations, this will vary from page to page but in easy readers, the number of lines per page should not exceed fifteen.

A
MOUNT OF
W
HITE
S
PACE PER
P
AGE

Children work hard to decode the text in easy readers, and they need to rest their eyes frequently. A lot of white space around words and pictures gives their eyes a place to rest.

P
LACEMENT OF
I
LLUSTRATIONS

In easy readers illustrations appear on every double-page spread. They may give essential picture clues to help the child, and they may provide little breaks for the eyes. They should not overwhelm the reader by
covering up every bit of white space, nor should they confuse the reader by taking over the text’s territory. They are there to complement the text, not compete with it.

LEVELS

Easy readers fall roughly into three levels based on how easy or difficult they are for children to read. In evaluating an easy reader, it is very important for the critic to determine the level of the book by looking at elements of design and content. Although there are no hard-and-fast rules—and even formal readability scales such as Frye and Spache are not always reliable—we can make a general overall assessment of a book by taking concrete factors such as word usage, line length, sentence structure, and illustrations into consideration.

L
EVEL
O
NE

The very easiest of the easy readers are written at a first-grade level. The text is set in 17-to 20-point type; and there are, on average, five words per line. The sentences average five to seven words, and the words that are used are largely sight vocabulary or one-syllable words of five letters or fewer. There are generally two to seven lines per page, with as much as two thirds of each page used for illustrations and white space. The illustrations provide plenty of picture clues.

Mo Willems’s popular Elephant & Piggie series falls into this category. All the text in these books appears in color-coded dialogue bubbles as the story is built with a conversation between the two characters and the accompanying illustrations that offer strong picture clues. In
There Is a Bird on Your Head
, for example, Piggie and readers can see exactly what is going on as two birds build a nest and lay eggs on top of Elephant’s head. Elephant, however, must rely on Piggie to tell him what is happening:

Like Willems, David Milgrim excels at writing humorous books at this level, such as
See Pip Point
, one in a series about two friends, a robot and a mouse. Milgrim brilliantly uses sight vocabulary to parody basal readers, a technique that works because of the strong context provided through his illustrations. For example, a picture showing Pip the mouse being lifted high off the ground after he’s been handed a helium balloon reads:

L
EVEL
T
WO

Written at a second-grade level, easy readers in the middle range begin to use slightly more complex sentences, alternating them with short simple ones. The number of sight words has greatly expanded, and children can now handle occasional unfamiliar multisyllabic words that are part of their natural oral speech. No more than five words per line continues to be the ideal length, even though the sentences themselves can be longer. The number of lines per page varies from four to fifteen, and the text is fairly evenly balanced with illustrations or white space.

Erica Silverman’s Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa series provides a good example of books at this level. They deal with the humorous friendship between a cowgirl and her talking horse, Cocoa. Here’s a typical exchange between them from the first volume in the series,
Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa
: