Roger is Reading a Book, by Koen Van Biesen, packs plenty of literacy lessons into a deceptively simple book. Children will love imitating the onomatopoeia on nearly every page. The repetitive sentence building that is the text will be easy to memorize, which means youngsters will soon “read” the book independently. The narrative is a disguised lesson in grammar. “Roger is reading. Roger is reading a book. . . Emily is playing. Emily is playing a game.” The story has a rising action as Emily's sounds and Rogers responses escalate—the onomatopoeia (capital letters in a green font) grows larger on the page, and Roger’s reactions become more dramatic. There is a satisfying resolution to this conflict between noisy Emily and her neighbor who needs quiet. Roger's dog enacts a parallel narrative throughout the book and completes the story like icing on a cake. Van Biesen’s illustrations are unlike any I’ve seen before. They’re original and hilarious.
This book is from The Picture Book Club as part of the Themed Subscription “English as a Second Language: Picture Books in Translation.”
This book is read aloud
online by The Lilys Read.
My Picture Book Talk for this story is here.
