Easy Reading Cybils

After reading two of the “Easy Reading” Cybils finalists, my conclusion is sure: I hope any children I might have pass VERY quickly through the easy reading stage.

Dodsworth in Rome by Tim Egan is like a remarkably muted Amelia Bedelia. Dodsworth and “the duck” arrive in Rome. Dodsworth announces their destination: “Rome!” So the duck begins to roam.

The two visit the famous sights of Rome on a motor scooter, the duck with his eyes tightly shut (riding on a motor scooter can be rather scary, you know). They visit the Sistine Chapel–and the duck tries painting a duck on the ceiling. They visit a flea market, where the duck warily watches out for fleas.

Things happen. The duck is mildly amusing. The book overall is rather boring.

I don’t think it’s the book’s fault so much as the genre’s.

Frog and Friends is slightly more interesting–each chapter acts as a discrete story, similar to a story one might find on the typical picture book shelf.

Frog and his friends find a balloon and try to figure out what kind of animal it is. They grab ahold of its tail and get the surprise of their life when a gust of wind sends them sailing through the air aloft–until the balloon pops. They give the pieces a decent burial, sadly realizing that they will never know what the THING was.

In the next story, frog is gifted a scarf that he immediately pronounces as “perfect”. When he discovers that it’s not so perfect, he regifts it to someone else, who also announces it perfect only to find that it’s not. The regifting continues until frog gets it back. This time, the gifter provides some scarf-tying assistance and the scarf is at last deemed perfect–and truly is.

Finally, a hippo runs away from the zoo and decides to hang out in frog’s pond for the rest of his life–something frog’s not so sure about. How can frog show hospitality while still convincing the hippo that maybe he doesn’t want to stay quite so long?

The individual stories that made up Frog and Friends are cute, while not particularly spectacular. But I rather suppose that’s how it is with Easy Readers.

The mercy, I suppose, is that these readers are supposed to be able to be read independently–so as long as your child can do it on your own, you won’t have to put up with it too long. Even so, I hope every child makes it quickly through this stage and on to books with actual plots.

These books were both Cybils Easy Reader Finalists. I read them as a part of Amy’s Armchair Cybils. Clearly, I’m not a fan of the genre–but Frog and Friends was amusing and it’d be my pick for winner (of the two I read). I can’t help thinking, though: “If these are the best of the best…” Yeah. Scary.