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Gertie Gorilla's Glorious Gift

by Barbara deRubertis
32p. 978-1-57565-318-1.
COPY ISBN
K-Gr 2 Each animal character and related adventure represents a letter of the alphabet. Eddie Elephant helps egg-sit for the Emu family. Frances Frog and Felicity Fox are friends even though they are opposites in many ways. And Gertie Gorilla drops her glorious birthday gift for Goat into the gulch. Kids will enjoy hearing each story as the alphaphonemic sounds are introduced. Alley's pen-and-ink drawings with soft watercolors capture the animals and their human characteristics in full-page illustrations, making the stories a delightful experience. Fans of Jane Belk Moncure's "New Sound Box Library" books (The Child's World) will appreciate a fresh spin on ways to introduce phonemes.-"Sandra Welzenbach, Villarreal Elementary School, San Antonio, TX" Copyright 2010 Media Source Inc.
Though a couple of the story lines are not terrible, all of these books are crammed with words that include the featured letter, making for a distracting and unsatisfying reading experience. Alley's lighthearted illustrations are more limber than the texts. Unnecessary last-page features include animal facts and phonemic awareness activities. There are five other spring 2010 books in this series. Review covers these Animal Antics A to Z titles: Alexander Anteater's Amazing Act, Corky Cub's Crazy Caps, Eddie Elephant's Exciting Egg-Sitting, Gertie Gorilla's Glorious Gift, and Izzy Impala's Imaginary Illnesses.

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