As promised, I want to provide you with my review for you the book, “A Little Bit of Faith,” from this mom’s perspective. As mentioned previously, I thought it was a great book, and we’ll be purchasing future books in the series for sure.
One of the first things I really liked about it is that it is a chapter book so it will in fact push my 8 year old daughter as it’s not something she will sit down and read in one sitting. So she’ll have to retain the story until our next reading session to be able to follow the story.
Another thing I liked is that while it is on her reading level (and in fact I was surprised that she knew some of the words as she was reading it to me), it does push and occasionally throw in words that are not common to her so we get to chat about them and I can see if she can tell meaning by context clues (which thanks to the great writing of Cindy Kenney) she was. Some of the words that threw her right off the bat were the names of some of the states. She had not heard of Kansas or Nebraska so she didn’t quite get them right. (Later after reading that night, we discussed that Mommy actually lived in Kansas for a little while when she was little). Another word? Sternly. She pronounced it fine, but something about the way she said it, I knew she didn’t know what it meant.
Third – the inclusion of God and guardian angels in the storyline. I loved that not only was it mentioned as part of everyday use but also that it was used on such a great age appropriate level – that we are all special in our own ways. When I first realized that there would be some mention of God in this book, I admit to being worried. I didn’t really want this to turn into the focus of the book as I knew that would probably not keep my daughter’s attention for long. I was so relieved to see how it was just used here and there and in very appropriate, non-religion specific ways.
Fourth – short chapters. With a young daughter who wants to love to read but is still trying to decide if she actually is, I was thankful for the shorter chapters. We frequently define our reading by chapters. I stop her at each chapter to quiz her about her understanding. Sometimes we take turn reading chapters so that she doesn’t get too worked up in the reading and missing parts of the story. And with chapters that are only 7 pages of actual writing, that was a very reasonable task.
And finally, the pictures. While personally I wouldn’t want to read a book with this many pictures, I suspected Cameron would like them, and I was right. I immediately noticed that when we flipped a page, when there was a picture (which is very frequently) she would pause to look at it and take it in. For a reader who is just moving into chapter books, this is a great resource as it helps them with their comprehension and it keeps their interest. The artwork in this book is amazing too (see the few pictures I posted).
I really do think this is one of the best children’s books I’ve seen come out in a long time. I am hoping that enough are released soon that we can in fact read several of them before Cameron moves up in her reading level to the point that these are not interesting anymore.
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