At the Hospital

School Library Journal

K-Gr 2Two lackluster titles that describe the daily operations at traditional field-trip sites. In Fire Station, firefighters respond to calls, maintain equipment, cook meals, etc. Hospital shows medical professionals tending to patients, working in the emergency room, and performing operations. The large, full-color photos illustrate real-life situations, but are dark, grainy, and often out of focus. Cartoons of children and animals with dialogue balloons appear throughout the books. These asides sometimes offer additional facts, but often restate the text. While the authors provide a basic level of information that could be helpful for prompting discussion with children either before or after a field trip, many of the functions are oversimplified and, as a result, bland. Fred Rogers's Going to the Hospital (Putnam, 1988), Rebecca Hankin's I Can Be a Doctor (Children's Press, 1985), Katherine Winkleman's Firehouse (Walker, 1994), and Susan Kuklin's Fighting Fires (Bradbury, 1993) all do a better job of describing these professions for this age group.Jennifer Oyama, Los Angeles Public Library, CA