Messy Bessey's Holidays (a Rookie Reader)

Maybe it's the cookie aspect, but my son (just turned 5) really likes this Rookie Reader book. The story, as you can gather from the title, is about Messy Bessey and the Holidays. It involves making cookies for her friends and neighbors and this time the mess she makes is in the kitchen. The book touches briefly on the holidays of Chanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. To that end, Bessey and her mom make cookies in different shapes which they then share out. An example of text follows. Menorahs, candles, fruits, and bells are signs of the holidays. All over, people celebrated in many different ways. Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Chanukah, no matter what the reason, here's a gift from Bess to you to celebrate the season. The book then ends with a recipe for sugar cookies. [My son likes the book so much he makes me read the recipe. Go figure--lol] Four Stars. Can't beat a Primer that promotes cleaning up after oneself. This Messy Bessey is about the winter time holidays. The vocabulary is rather harder in this book than other Bessey's because of the holiday words themselves and it is listed as 2.3 on the Accelerated Reading scale. Or in other words, this book is suitable for a child reading at the [...]level. Harder words include: community, celebrate, hillside, shepherds, wonderful, and working. 123 different words. ~review by Pam T.~

Maybe it's the cookie aspect, but my son (just turned 5) really likes this Rookie Reader book. The story, as you can gather from the title, is about Messy Bessey and the Holidays. It involves making cookies for her friends and neighbors and this time the mess she makes is in the kitchen. The book touches briefly on the holidays of Chanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. To that end, Bessey and her mom make cookies in different shapes which they then share out. An example of text follows. Menorahs, candles, fruits, and bells are signs of the holidays. All over, people celebrated in many different ways. Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Chanukah, no matter what the reason, here's a gift from Bess to you to celebrate the season. The book then ends with a recipe for sugar cookies. [My son likes the book so much he makes me read the recipe. Go figure--lol] Four Stars. Can't beat a Primer that promotes cleaning up after oneself. This Messy Bessey is about the winter time holidays. The vocabulary is rather harder in this book than other Bessey's because of the holiday words themselves and it is listed as 2.3 on the Accelerated Reading scale. Or in other words, this book is suitable for a child reading at the second grade level. Harder words include: community, celebrate, hillside, shepherds, wonderful, and working. 123 different words. ~review by Pam T.~

Short stories with good color illustrations. Pictures are fair - easy to read, with good informantion in the 5 to 8 year old age group. Short 1 character settings around Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukah, and New Years. I would recommend this one to K through the 2nd grade levels