Where Are You?

K-Gr 2–This new series of early readers offers short, simple stories about the same four children (Kat, Nat, Raj, and Su) in 15 pages or less, with each page handling about four to eight words. The friends engage in activities relatable to the emerging reader age group, including cleaning out their desks on the last day before summer vacation, playing hide-and-seek, studying together for a spelling test, and operating a lemonade stand. Unfortunately, the stories fall are dull. Ponnay includes figures with a variety of skin tones, hair colors, and styles, as well as including an (unnamed) child in a wheelchair in one book; however, the digitally rendered characters are flat with stock facial expressions. Bodies and heads nearly always face exactly forward or backward. Most troubling for early readers, the dialogue is punctuated and capitalized incorrectly. Libraries looking for interesting, well-illustrated beginning readers are better off with selections from the “I Like to Read” series, for example.