Row, Row, Row Your Boat; and Ride, Ride, Ride Your Bike. (Tadpoles: Nursery Rhymes). Wes Magee, reteller. Illustrated by Marina Le Ray. St. Catharines, ON: Crabtree, 2013. 24 pp., pbk. & hc., $7.95 (pbk.), $18.36 (RLB.). ISBN 978-0-7787-1153-7 (pbk.), ISBN 978-0-7787-1149-0 (RLB). Subject Heading: Nursery rhymes, English. Preschool-grade 1 / Ages 4-6. Review by Kerri Hutchinson. ** /4

excerpt:

Ride, ride, ride your bike Up the muddy lane (From Ride, Ride, Ride Your Bike.)

Row, Row, Row Your Boat is a classic nursery rhyme enjoyed by children and adults alike. Author Wes Magee and illustrator Marina Le Ray retell Row, Row, Row Your Boat with fun, bright, cartoon illustrations and simple, easy to read sentences. The familiarity with the rhyme helps emergent readers develop their word recognition skills. Following the first section, the rhyme reappears, in full, with the question, “Can you point to the rhyming words?”.

     In the second section of the book, Row, Row, Row Your Boat is reinvented in the companion rhyme Ride, Ride, Ride Your Bike. The new rhyme, about riding a bike, is one to which many children will be able to relate, and the illustrations and actions provide a fun alternative to Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Just like in the first section, the full rhyme reappears at the end of the section and again a question encourages children to identify the words that rhyme.

      Each rhyme provides illustrated actions inserted in the bottom right corner of each page. On the second last page, there is another activity entitled “Puzzle Time!” that challenges readers to match the actions to the corresponding illustration. Since the actions are more readily matched to the words, rather than the larger illustration, the puzzle may be difficult for the reader to find the correct answer. The final page features “Notes for adults” to help extend the reading experience, as well as the answer from “Puzzle Time!”.

      This early reader book, part of Crabtree’s “Tadpoles: Nursery Rhymes” series, is complete with fun illustrations and simple sentences that will appeal to young readers.

Recommended.

Kerri Hutchinson lives in Waterloo, ON, and is a Branch Librarian for North Perth Public Library in Atwood, ON.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Copyright © the Manitoba Library Association. Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.

Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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