Reviews for Find Someone Who: Introducing 200 Favorite Picture Books

The average rating for Find Someone Who: Introducing 200 Favorite Picture Books based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-07-12 00:00:00 Andrea Blume You don't have to like a subject to write about it. Heck, there are plenty of subjects that are deserving of ridicule and condemnation. And the "Great Books" movement (I almost put scare-quotes around "movement") has some serious flaws. But this book just exposes the author as narrow-minded while leaving you wishing he did a lot more research into his subject. What has Alex Beam done? He learned a bit about the origins of "Great Books" courses like Columbia's Literature-Humanities sequence and the St. John's College curriculum. He even sat in on a few St. John's classes and spoke to a few people involved. He gives us a sense of the personalities of the people involved, particularly Mortimer Adler. He tells a story, though it's not much of a story. (There were these guys, and they were really into books, and they thought people should read them. They had some influence at a few colleges and they launched some publishing ventures and book clubs and stuff.) Beam's principal bugaboos are: (1) it's ridiculous to learn science from the original scientific works -- why read Euclid or Newton when you can read a textbook?; (2) translations matter; and (3) a lot of great books aren't that great, and it's hard to know what makes a book great, but he's glad that he's been turned onto writers like Epictetus. That's about it. This book should have been half as long or four times as long. And it should have been written by someone else. Someone who knows a lot about higher education, particularly literature and philosophy. Or by someone who doesn't care much about that stuff but who knows a lot about 20th century America. Or by someone with a really good sense of humor. Or by someone with no sense of humor at all BUT who is self-aware on that matter. I teach literature and philosophy and I'll be the first to say that such an education isn't for everyone. Reading good books doesn't solve social problems and it doesn't make you a better person. (It can help, but it can hurt as well.) It helps to know about historical and cultural context when you read a book, but if a book is any good, it can't be reduced to the particulars of its time and place and even its author. Because yes, it's possible for a book to be good, even if you don't like it. What Mr. Beam shows and doesn't quite say is that Great Books people tend to be enthusiasts. They are amateurs in the old-fashioned sense. They love things and they want other people to love them, too. This means that it's easy to laugh at them or say they're wasting their (and everyone else's) time. Mr. Beam writes as if he doesn't love anything, or rather, as if whatever he loves doesn't mean anything to anyone other than himself. So you can skip this one. If you're interested in the ways that reading books might be a waste of time that ruins people's lives, Cervantes wrote a really good book on that subject.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-11-17 00:00:00 Kenneth Wennerberg Polette, N. (2006). Find someone who: Introducing 200 favorite picture books. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited. Citation by: Kristin White Type of Reference: Bibliography Call Number: Ref 011.62 Pole 2006 Content/Scope: "Find Someone Who" is a bibliography of the 200 best picture books to read aloud to children. The book title centers around how important it is to encourage young readers to think about how they or someone in the group can relate to what is happening in the story. A one-paragraph book talk introduces each story. Then, a set of 10 questions to follow each story is included. This is a great place for young readers to explore popular titles, as well as a good resource for teachers and parents. Accuracy/Authority/Bias: Nancy Polette is a well-known, successful author of other bibliographies for children and young adult books. Her work is trusted by educators and librarians, and she is unbiased in her book selections. Arrangement/Presentation: This bibliography is arranged alphabetically and includes a one-page reproducible for each story included. The pages include one paragraph that advertises the book, as well as questions to ask readers. Titles covered in the bibliography range include award winners, fairy tales, and classics. Relation to other works: Nancy Polette has written other bibliographies for older readers, as this set of book selections is geared towards preschool and primary level students. It is similar to other bibliographies used by teachers and librarians. Accessibility/Diversity: This title is perhaps best used by teachers and/or librarians, but students could access it as well for its list of titles. Because the titles are aimed for preschool and primary age students, it may be best for a librarian or teacher to at least assist students in looking through this text. However, the stories included are of a wide range of genres, interests, and backgrounds. Cost: $35.00 Professional Review: Christolon, B. (2007). Find Someone Who: Introducing 200 Favorite Picture Books. School Library Journal, 53(6), 184.