Time Machine
Built My Kids Reading Confidence, April 19, 2005
I love Margaret Hillert books. My kids find the retellings of classic tales interesting, and the fact that they can 'read' the story themselves, works to build their confidence.

This little book is written for beginning readers. It is at the Kindergarten Reading Level: AR 0.8. The book contains 60 vocabulary words; 296 words total.

The story follows Tom's adventures as various sorts of creatures mistake him for a meal. Tom is rescued from each situation and ultimately ends up with a king that treats him kindly; offering Tom an ornate chair and a mouse complete with saddle to carry him. Tom appreciates these things, but ultimately decides that he must return home where he is warmly welcomed by this parents.

The sentences are better than those of Dick and Jane, but the story of Tom Thumb is definitely not completely explained by the text, so unless your child is familiar with the story you should read or tell them the full version beforehand.

The artwork by Dennis Hockerman is nice and all-in-all this little book is not a bad purchase for a beginner reader if you can get it at a reasonable price.

Recommend for practice. No down side except that children soon move on and are ready for more exciting reading material.

A simplified version of the fairy tale for beginning readers. It's a very easy one to read, so all but the beginners may find the text boring, but the pictures are lovely. ( )

There is a man and woman who would like a son. They find this very tiny boy to be their son. He is so small that he gets taken by birds, almost eaten by cows, etc. He is found by the King and treats him like a son as well. The boy gets home sick and the King sends the little boy home with a gold coin to take to his parents.

After reading the book several times, I can see why it would be used for a beginning reader. I do not like this book as well. It is not so much the pictures I do not like, but the words that are used in this book. I do not think the words flow with the pictures or in the book itself.

I would ask the children if they have smaller siblings or if they are the smaller sibling. I can have them think of ideas that they can do to help their siblings even though they are small.
We can also make small puppet boys and girls. We can make them small enough to fit in the children's hand and walk around to see how the parents felt with tom as their son.