Let's Get Outdoors!

Another fabulous early nonfiction Blastoff! Readers Series. With bright colors, contemporary photograph illustrations, and high contrast font using Most Common Words, this series will be a wonderful starter set for early and emerging readers interested in outdoor sports. This reviewer had the opportunity to read the selection titled Ice Skating. The narrative describes skating for pleasure and exercise, figure skating, and hockey. Different types of ice skates are depicted along with suggestions for other appropriate winter-weather gear and helmets for beginners. Several pages are dedicated to safety while skating on lakes and ponds. Includes table of contents, glossary, additional resources, and index.

THOUGHTS: Young ice skating enthusiasts will enjoy the photos of figure and hockey skaters as well as the tips for learning to skate. Inclusive representation of many different children enjoying various ice skating activities. Good for building early nonfiction collections in need of simple and clear books about a variety of sports for early readers.

Blastoff! Readers Level 2: Let’s Get Outdoors is a ten book series that is written in a format that is appropriate for young readers that are ready for a bit more complexity in sentence structure. Typical nonfiction features include: table of contents, index, glossary, labeled diagrams and illustration, headings and bold typed words. Each book has high interest photos and details an outdoor activity/sport. Gear lists and safety equipment/protocol are addressed. A diverse array of people are shown participating in each activity. Readers will see themselves out there having fun with theses book. Add this series to your library for those newer readers that are ready for something more. Biking is a great introduction to an activity that can a slower- paced or fast and adrenaline rushing. People are shown biking along trails, the roads and doing tricks or racing. I like that there is a photo of an adaptive bike rider, showing that it is an accessible outdoor activity. Safety and gear needs are noted and the reader learns that most bike friendly city in the world is Copenhagen – a fun fact to round out a nice introduction to this outdoor sport.