I told my brother this week that my family has finally reached two very important benchmarks: 1) that my kids no longer walk immediately in front me, just to stop suddenly making me buckle my knees; and 2) that both of my kids have made the leap into chapter books. The second benchmark is huge (though my knees are more thankful for the first).

My wife and I are offering out children points if they complete a chapter-book and then write a report about it, and they can turn these point into money, which they can then turn into Lego sets. It’s a win-win for all of us, and it makes our thrifting all that much more enjoyable as well, because now the children’s-book section isn’t just a mess to be avoided but a field to be harvested. The kids have their favorite characters of course (Junie B. Jones being their top right now), but I like sneaking new series into the mix as well, just to see what sticks.

I’ve never read Suzy Kline’s Horrible Harry books, and I honestly only picked up this one because of the Asian title-character, but I do believe this series about 8-year-old students would be a great fit for my 7- and 9-year-old kids.

Song Lee is a Korean immigrant who’s just another student among many in Miss Mackle’s second-grade class. The four chapters of the this book first introduce us to her shyness, which she overcomes by giving a speech behind a cardboard plum-tree. Then we see her kindness as she keeps a friend’s fun secret on St. Patrick’s Day, despite the meanness of Mary beside her. Then we see her creativity, as she notices and writes about the details of Harry’s nose. And finally we see her love for Chungju, the salamander, whom she saves from a potential school fire.

The chapters of this book were a bit longish, about 15 pages each (plus pictures), but each offered a unique insight into this girl’s personality. What I found most interesting, though, was that this book wasn’t necessarily all about Song Lee. She was a major character, and she played an important role in each chapter, but every observation came from classmate Doug’s perspective. That being the case, all the other random 8-year-old observations thrown in made the reader feel like he was just another part of the class, along with Harry, Doug, Mary, Song Lee and others.

I think back to my days as a kindergarten teacher, with twenty-six 5- and 6-year-olds coming and going. Each child had his own personality and quirks, and I can imagine fictionalizing a collection of entertaining anecdotes from that class. Suzy Kline’s approach certainly lays the groundwork for a series of books that sort of focus on each student of the class while really just giving us an inside peak to the goings on of 2B. It’s an ingenious approach, and even though these books are going on 30 years old, I think we would enjoy reading more from this series.

One note I would make, however, as a guy who loved providing theme-focused stories in my classrooms: since the stories in this book all occur in March, it should be tagged somewhere on the front of back cover. I don’t know if Kline’s stories all cover a particular month of the year or not, but that information would be helpful to teachers who might be building a monthly library for their students.

©2020 E.T.