Tomie De Paola - 26 Fairmount Avenue: Books 1-4
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One "in-betweener" writes for others
Pros
short, simple format is perfect for "in-betweeners"
Cons
readers may not understand every historical detail
Recommended it?
Yes
Transitions can be some of life's most difficult times. For young readers and their parents, moving from controlled-vocabulary, fully-illustrated "easy reader" books to longer, more sophisticated "chapter books" can be especially frustrating--there simply aren't many in-between titles to choose from. Where does an independent reader turn between Frog and Toad Are Friends and Charlotte's Web?
Leave it to a trusted friend to find a home for these displaced readers. Renowned author and illustrator Tomie dePaola has produced dozens of picture books, many of which are based on true episodes from his life. His first chapter book, 26 Fairmount Avenue, gathers some of the stories he has shared before together with new ones, and expands them into detail not appropriate for a picture-book format. At the center is the house Tomie's family is having built (at the address which makes the book's title). Readers caught in between books that are too easy and too difficult for them will surely be able to identify with Tomie's sense of being stuck between his two homes.
The events the author describes happened over sixty years ago, yet the voice of dePaola's exuberant five-year-old self seems as authentic as it were still 1938. Times may have changed, and some details may seem unfamiliar, but much of a child's world is the same now as it was then, and contemporary readers will recognize pieces of their own lives in dePaola's. The narrator's affection for his family and the other "characters" around him, so evident in his other autobiographical works, gains added depth here, as he tells what happens in the year his house is being built. Of paramount importance are going to see "Mr. Walt Disney's movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" (and Tomie's disappointment that it departed so drastically from the "real" story his mother had read to him), his first day of kindergarten (where when he found out he wouldn't learn to read until first grade, he told the kindergarten teacher, "Fine. I'll be back next year,") and most importantly, the many setbacks and delays surrounding the construction of his family's first "real" home, at 26 Fairmount Avenue.
At 58 pages, with several black-and-white illustrations, 26 Fairmount Avenue makes a manageable read for young people daunted by longer chapter books. Fans of dePaola's picture books will relish the additional details into the life of this favorite author, and readers new to Tomie dePaola will almost surely want to investigate some of his other work while waiting for the sequel to 26 Fairmount Avenue.
Leave it to a trusted friend to find a home for these displaced readers. Renowned author and illustrator Tomie dePaola has produced dozens of picture books, many of which are based on true episodes from his life. His first chapter book, 26 Fairmount Avenue, gathers some of the stories he has shared before together with new ones, and expands them into detail not appropriate for a picture-book format. At the center is the house Tomie's family is having built (at the address which makes the book's title). Readers caught in between books that are too easy and too difficult for them will surely be able to identify with Tomie's sense of being stuck between his two homes.
The events the author describes happened over sixty years ago, yet the voice of dePaola's exuberant five-year-old self seems as authentic as it were still 1938. Times may have changed, and some details may seem unfamiliar, but much of a child's world is the same now as it was then, and contemporary readers will recognize pieces of their own lives in dePaola's. The narrator's affection for his family and the other "characters" around him, so evident in his other autobiographical works, gains added depth here, as he tells what happens in the year his house is being built. Of paramount importance are going to see "Mr. Walt Disney's movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" (and Tomie's disappointment that it departed so drastically from the "real" story his mother had read to him), his first day of kindergarten (where when he found out he wouldn't learn to read until first grade, he told the kindergarten teacher, "Fine. I'll be back next year,") and most importantly, the many setbacks and delays surrounding the construction of his family's first "real" home, at 26 Fairmount Avenue.
At 58 pages, with several black-and-white illustrations, 26 Fairmount Avenue makes a manageable read for young people daunted by longer chapter books. Fans of dePaola's picture books will relish the additional details into the life of this favorite author, and readers new to Tomie dePaola will almost surely want to investigate some of his other work while waiting for the sequel to 26 Fairmount Avenue.
