________________ CM . . . . Volume XXI Number 27. . . .March 20, 2015

cover

ABC’s Down on the Farm.

Eileen Munro.
Regina, SK: Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing, 2014.
32 pp., pbk., $12.95.
ISBN 978-1-927756-27-0.

Subject Heading:
Farm life - Prairie Provinces - Juvenile literature.

Preschool / Ages 2-5.

Review by Ellen Heaney.

** /4

   

Many people believe they have a children’s book in them, and Eileen Munro has gotten a small prairie publisher to see hers into print. Familiar elements of the alphabet, life on a farm and short rhyming text are all at play here.

Aa is for apple, picked in the fall, Bb is for barn – some big and some small. Cc is for combine in the field, threshing grain, Dd is for ducks that splash in the rain.

     One letter and one line of text accompany each of 26 bright farm scenes in which the same two children go through their day.

     On the plus side, letters of the alphabet are shown in both upper and lower case which makes the book more useful as a teaching tool. Also, the scansion of the verse works smoothly.

     Problems are that the illustrations are cheerful but amateurish, and the rhyme has nothing original about it other than the inclusion of a few words that will be unfamiliar to young readers (like “threshing” and “yarrow”) which will expand vocabulary.

     There are no fresh insights here, which make the book unobjectionable but far from a necessary purchase for preschool or library collections.

Recommended with Reservations.

Ellen Heaney is a retired children’s librarian living in Coquitlam, BC.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Copyright © the Manitoba Library Association. Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.
Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364
Hosted by the University of Manitoba.
 

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