Dexter's Journey

School Library Journal

Gr 1-3-These titles vary greatly in quality and effectiveness. Memphis is the least polished of the three stories. In it, a family of mummies dream of going on a vacation when a flying saucer crashes into their pyramid and drops off a musician who has lost his memory. They take him to the mummy music store in ancient Memphis and discover that he is a famous rock star. In thanks for their help, he puts on a concert that makes enough money to rebuild the pyramid and send the mummies on vacation, into outer space. The dialogue balloons are hard to read, and some of the words in them are lost in the gutters. Dexter's Journey is about a toy duck that gets lost at sea. All of the other ducks are found and distributed by seagulls, rock climbers, fishermen, an explorer, and a hunter, leaving Dexter all alone until he, too, is found. Text and colorful cartoon drawings work well together, but some difficult words will be a challenge to beginning readers. In Big Dog, two pups build a rocket in order to visit the sad moon and cheer him up, and the three have so much fun that the dogs go back every Monday. The hardest word, "plasticine," is repeated three times, as are other complex words. The cartoonlike illustrations work well with the story. Skip the mummies; consider the other two as additional titles for easy-reader collections.-Kathleen Simonetta, Indian Trails Public Library District, Wheeling, IL Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.