Drills (Tools of the Trade)

Kindergarten-Grade 2–This series is billed as being for fluent readers. Each title presents four examples of the featured tool. The four-page chapters have two pages of introductory material and large color photos that usually label various parts of the tool. Boxed captions describe some of the smaller illustrations. The last two pages of the chapter show a person working with the item (whose brand name has been removed). An attempt has been made to personalize these photos by naming the worker. Drills, Hammers, and Screwdrivers are fine purchases, though they would be more suitable for one-on-one reading than for independent reading. In the other books, safety features are not consistently shown–in Saws, for example, a man using a handsaw on a 2x8 is holding the board against his thigh. Drills, Hammers, and Screwdrivers exhibit other small problems in their photographs. The texts end abruptly and are followed by four-question matching tests and four-question true-false quizzes. END