Letters

I am writing in response, to your review of Paige Taylor and Kent and Susan Brinkmeyer's book, Dewey & the Decimals: Learning Games & Activities (Alleyside, 2001; March 2002, p. 263). Your reviewer found the book to have "major flaws" and questions why students should be "subjected" to the activities recommended within it.

The goal of this title is to help students progressively acquire the skills necessary to locate books in the library using the Dewey Decimal Classification system. The reviewer contends that there is little to be learned from completing simple exercises in categorization and number sequencing. I disagree. These simple activities are designed to introduce concepts and provide a foundation from which the librarian can build greater knowledge. I agree with the reviewer that "directed exploration" of the library is important, but would add that it should occur only after students are prepared for the journey.

The reviewer also comments that Dewey & the Decimals does not contain enough "Information Age" activities. While the book does contain a number of activities devoted to accessing information via online catalogs and the Internet, the book is intended to teach students about the Dewey Decimal Classification system, not instruct them on technology.

Matt Mulder
Director, Highsmith Publications
Fort Atkinson, WI

I was a little taken back when I read Rosalyn Pierini's review of Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers. (Harcourt, 2001; May 2001, p. 129) This book has two illustrations of same sex relationships. I don't think this is an appropriate book for schools to be reading to small children who still need direction to discern what is right and not right. Please take a closer look at these illustrations before putting your mark of approval on it. I am not trying to bash homosexuals, however, I do believe ages two to five are a little young to be introduced to this way of life.

Kristin Mosura
Former Elementary Teacher
Shreveport, LA

I am truly puzzled by this letter . It's awfully hard to know how to respond to such an extreme interpretation of the illustrations. There are a couple of instances in which, if one were looking very hard, one might infer that the couples were same sex, but these "couples" could just as easily be simply friends or relatives sharing a moment. The whole look and feel of the book is so wholesome and loving that it is hard to dignify this bizarre complaint with a response.

Rosalyn Pierini
San Luis Obispo
City-County Library
San Luis Obispo, CA

We feel that the reviewer of our book, Through the Grapevine: World Tales Kids Can Read and Tell (August House, 2001; Feb. 2001, p. 120), did not take into account that this is a book of stories for children to read and tell. She says, "the stories are so truncated and oversimplified that they have no flavor or sense of place." We have 20 years of experience teaching kids to tell stories and have found that storytelling is something every child is capable of doing as long as he/she chooses an appropriate story. While allowing a heterogeneous classroom of students to go to the library and pick a folktale from a large collection will work for some children, most will choose stories that are far too long or complicated to tell, and will end up failing at the task. Our goal is to help beginners be successful, so that they will get excited about storytelling and public speaking, and want to do more of it. After an initial success with a simpler story, children can then move on to tell more complicated tales with foreign phrases and old-fashioned traditional language befitting a folktale.

The reviewer also writes that "they include a great deal of today's colloquialisms, which may make them easier for novices to swallow, but will jar more sophisticated tellers and listeners." We've found that if we don't use language that flows freely from the lips of children in a story, they either don't choose that story, or they struggle in the telling. Our story versions have been adapted over years of listening to many young children, tell them. (They are taught not to memorize but to tell the stories in their own words.) We've found that there needs to be a balance between challenging children with vocabulary and syntax, while finding what words feel comfortable for them.

Many state educational standards place a strong emphasis on speaking and listening skills. Nothing helps develop these skills better than a storytelling project. We strive to make storytelling accessible for all students, and to give teachers the tools they need so that they can confidently undertake a storytelling project.

Mitch Weiss/Martha Hamilton
Beauty & the Beast Storytellers
Ithaca, NY

The authors approach worked well in their Noodlehead Stories (2000) and in Pleasant DeSpain's Sweet Land of Story (2000, both August House), in the same series. However, for stories as complex as the ones in Grapevine, I believe that the approach was unsuccessful. Here, the selections seem dictated by apparent length requirements, and the language, while it may flow freely from the lips of children, is jarring and unsuitable.

Marlyn Roberts
Youth Services Librarian
Hacienda Heights, CA

I need to respond to inaccurate statements made by Margaret Howell in her review of two titles in our Colonies series (ABDO, 2001, Apr 2002, p. 129), particularly regarding the amount of information we've included in comparison to the Library of the Thirteen Colonies series (Rosen). At 2400 words (average body text) and 32 pages, our Colonies series contains almost twice as much information about each colony (Rosen averages 1300 words, 24 pages each). And while Rosen's topics are inconsistent throughout their series, each of our books covers identical topics—including food, clothing, and shelter—which are part of national curriculum standards, and which Rosen fails to cover.

As for Ms. Howell's comment that "Roanoke may confuse some readers since the author describes how the colonists lived after mentioning that the site had been abandoned," we find this criticism unfair and misleading. Site abandonment is mentioned in the first chapter, which summarizes the main topics. The subsequent chapters then describe in chronological order the plight of the Roanoke Colony, and what life was like there.

Overall, Ms. Howell's review seems vague. We got no sense that she either recommended or disapproved of our Colonies series. In addition, we believe that our Roanoke book is the only library volume for this grade level that discusses America's other lost colony—the Popham Colony—discovered in 1994.

Bob Italia
Editorial Director
ABDO Publishing Company
Edwina, MN

The article "Web of Deceit " in the April issue misstated the position taken by the principal of Piper High School after the Piper school board reversed teacher Christine Pelton's decision to fail 28 biology students for plagiarizing portions of an assignment from the Internet. In fact, Mike Adams, Piper High School's principal, supported Pelton's decision, and the order to reverse the failures came from the superintendent of the Piper school district. We regret the error.