From Franklin Watts...

Teaching Pre K-8, Mar 2000 by Broderick, Patricia, Raymond, Allen

From Franklin Watts... we received three outstanding series of non-fiction titles. One is on the planets, another on animals, birds of prey, freshwater giants and lots of other fun stuff. (Two of the books in the series, Animal Sharpshooters and Cannibal Animals were written by Anthony Fredericks, Teaching K-8's muchloved former columnist. Tony knows just what kids like!)

However, we're going to tell you about the third series here. Kids, being kids, love the excitement of disasters. It's an easy pathway to get them to read when they seem turned off by most books.

Well, Watts has four terrific books on disasters, Fires, Space Disasters, Air Crashes, and Maritime Disasters. Indeed, the Titanic sinking is included, but so are many other ships which were lost at sea. And in the book on fires, four historic blazes are recounted. It's the same with the other titles.

The books provide the perfect platform not only for reading, but as jumping off points for debates, reports, great writing exercises and even, as in the case of Titanic, comparison of video and printed versions of the same disaster. Certain words, which appear in bold type, appear in a glossary in the back of the books. The 64-page books are well written and have good illustrations. These should be an addition to every classroom non-fiction selection. Special school/library discounts, so better call or write.

Franklin Watts

Box 795

Danbury, CT 06816

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