I received an arc of these titles for an honest review. A nice sampler of easy to read books for young ones just starting to read.

This set contains the following books:

The Great Grizzly Race by Zoa Lumsden. [Early Reader]

Wonderful illustrations that made me smile and feel all giggly.

All the bicycles are missing. What will everyone ride in the big race? The Dog Detectives set off to find them. Luckily, the bikes are found. Grizzly was bullying the animals because he was afraid to lose. Since the bikes were returned, Grizzly decides to cheat. When that backfires, he is surprised that the Dog Detectives would help him after him being so mean. In the end, Grizzly finds out how nice it is to have friends.

The book is an easy and fun read. It teaches a good lesson about bullying from the point of view of the bully. The story is followed by questions for the child to answer about the story.


Maya Likes the Beach by Margo Gates; Illustrations by Brian Hartley. [Pull Ahead Readers]

This book shows the things Maya the dog likes. Each page states “Maya Likes the …” followed by the objects such as stick, sand, boat, grass and waves. This great, easy to read book is for children just beginning to read. The repetitive words are simple yet tell a fun tale.

The illustrations are clear pictures all showing an adorable Maya. The objects make the beach look like such fun.


We All Like Summer by Katie Peters

Similar to Maya Likes the Beach, the statement “We like the …” is followed by the words beach, flowers, grass, pool and sun.

The illustrations are photos instead of drawings. I prefer the drawings, but the photographs are nicely done.


I received an ARC of each of the above books from Lerner Publishing Group through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affects my opinion and rating of this book.

“The Great Grizzly Race” is a leveled reader J/K level. Some of the vocabulary in the book I wouldn’t really want to encourage in the classroom wimps, poop). Of course, kids say things like that but I don’t want to encourage it. A bully-type story with a surprise ending. The illustrations in my opinion made the book. This book I would rate 3 stars.

“Maya Likes the Beach” A high-interest level C/D reader that beginning readers would enjoy! Sweet illustrations and clear text. 5 stars.


“We Like the Summer”-Nonfiction reader level C/D. The text and photos matched well. Nice photos representing multicultural children of various ages which is great because if you have an older English language learner although the text is emergent the photos represent children of various ages. They would be more inclined to read it. 4 stars.

I liked these stories a lot. The pictures supported the text very well. I especially enjoyed the easier titles. They were books that a reader would definitely want to pick up.

The Fall 2019 Early Readers Sampler featured three, fairly short children's stories. The first one, <i>The Great Grizzly Race</i> featured a huge bicycle race in which one of the characters happens to be an unfortunate cheater, <i>Maya Likes the Beach </i>detailed a dog's day having quite a bit of fun jumping around in the sand by the ocean, and the last book <i>We Like the Summer </i>is a quick book that lightly describes the summertime pictures within it. I always love reading samplers, since they really do a fantastic job of giving you a picture for what the books are going to be and this is my first time reading one for younger readers. Instead of just a portion of a book, you actually get the whole book.

I really didn't like <i>The Great Grizzly Race</i>. It was an odd story, supported bullying back in order to stop a bully, and just overall wasn't great. It's not something I would ever get a kid I know or recommend, but the reading level is definitely appropriate and I did appreciate that there were questions about it included in the back of the book. The artwork was cute, but the story kind of ruined it.

<i>Maya Likes the Beach</i> was a little close to my heart since I brought my puppy to the beach a little while back and he has the most amazing time going swimming and digging around in the sand. I adored the way that the book detailed Maya's adventure, though I will admit that the artwork wasn't my favorite. Even so, this is definitely a book that I'm more inclined to recommend.

I've never been a non-fiction reader, if I'm being honest. Most of the non-fiction books I've picked up are books I haven't enjoyed. With that said, however, I do really appreciate their usefulness. <i>We Like the Summer</i> isn't my favorite book and I probably wouldn't buy it. At the end of the day, I found this one rather boring but I have nothing against it, either. It's really just not for me.

<i>I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</i>