Signs in My Neighborhood

April 1, 2013

PreS-Gr1-Children are introduced to a variety of neighbors (e.g., firefighters, librarians, and doctors) and learn how they teach, help, and serve the community. Readers are asked to think about where people live, how individuals travel from place to place, how to stay safe, and how to read signs around us. Short chapters, simple sentences, bold and colorful chapter headings and ample use of white space provide key decoding tools for emerging readers. The clear, large, color photographs portray diverse community members actively engaged in day-to-day living. The images not only create grabbing covers, but they also provide visual details that enhance understanding of key concepts and extend the texts. The layout is well balanced between illustration and text, helping students in their comprehension of each topic.

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2013
Preschool-K The My Neighborhood series offers the youngest readers a chance to take a fresh look at their closest surroundings and make deeper sense of what they find. The oversize format allows for sharp, bright photographs so large they're almost panoramicperfect for capturing the wandering gazes of children, most of whom will find similarities to their own lives in the pictures. (Most of the images are from suburban settings, leaving out city and country dwellers.) Meanwhile, one or two sentences of simple text on each left-hand page help guide the reader. Signs in My Neighborhood introduces the basics: traffic lights, stop signs, hospital signs, road signs, and more. Each volume is filled with happy, multicultural characters and ends with a question for discussion, for example, What signs do you see in your neighborhood? A good way to open little ones' eyes to what's directly around them.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)