3 out of 4 stars
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Toni the Superhero, by R.D. Base, is a book for children aged one to four. It narrates the ordinary side of Toni the superhero’s life particularly the activities which Toni likes. The book utilizes simple sentences to tell its story. The vocabulary consists of basic words which young children are familiar with such as sing, run, and jump. If the child encounters an unknown word while reading, the pictures which accompany the sentences can be used as an aid when explaining or defining the word.
The sentence structure is repetitive following the same standard format throughout the book. This repetition helps ease the young child’s understanding. However, the monotonous structure might make the book boring to read hence it is advisable to add some innovation to the story when reading aloud to help maintain interest in the book.
The editing is good with no grammatical or spelling mistakes except one involving the classification of a noun. In the sentence 'Toni is a Superhero'; 'Superhero' is capitalized making it a proper noun rather than a common one though this may have been intentional. The illustrations are also bright and vivid which should appeal to the visual senses of children.
By showing Toni the superhero’s ordinary life, the book may give children a thrill at the similarity between their lives and a superhero’s. It may also instill them with a desire to work or help out like Toni inspiring little children to develop a sense of responsibility.
The book does not contain much of a storyline. The lack of plot does help maintain the simple sentence structure and thus makes the book very suitable to be used as teaching material for children learning to read. Hence, the book is more of a reading primer than a storybook as its title and colorful cover may lead one to believe.
It may be a good idea to start by showing how awesome Toni is as a superhero, before talking about the ordinary things he likes to do. Such a start would have helped increase the child’s interest in the book and thus increase the book's effectiveness as a reading aid.
As an aid to learning to read, the book is very useful. However, the points mentioned above such as the lack of plot and the failure to build a sense of awe in the child for Toni, weaken the book’s ability to stimulate the child’s interest. Thus, I give this book a rating of 3 out of 4 stars.
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Toni the Superhero
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