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Steven, a beginning second grader, is doing very well reading "easy readers" in his classroom and at home. At the library one evening, he picks up Stink: The Incredible Shrinking Kid by Megan McDonald. He was ready to move on to longer books, and now he's hooked, not only on Stink, but also on transitional books.
Transitional books include books like Mary Pope Osborne's Magic Tree House series, Barbara Park's Junie B. Jones series, and Nikki Grimes's Dyamonde Daniel series, as well as single titles such as Colby Rodowsky's Jason Rat-a-Tat and Jessie Haas's Runaway Radish. Transitional books are characterized by short chapters (about six to eight pages), a reader- friendly font, a few illustrations per chapter, language and vocabulary accessible to children reading at a second- through fourth-grade level, and subjects and emotions appropriate for seven- to ten-year-olds.1
The characters typically have unique personalities, but they do not tend to change or develop across the stories or books within a long series. Transitional books may help the child to feel like a "real reader"; there is no number on the front of the book indicating a reading level, and transitional books look like books read by older children and adults. The Gryphon Award, which has been given annually since 2004 by the Center for Children's Books at the University of Illinois, seeks to draw attention to transitional literature as an important steppingstone from easy readers to longer chapter books.
Series books can be particularly valuable to children in this transitional reader age group. Series prepare children to read longer books; they learn about narrative structure and how a more complex plot can be put together. Publishers are increasingly willing and even eager to publish books in series because they are selling a known quantity. That is why children like series books, too. The familiarity with characters and scenes they have met before is reassuring.2
The repetition of characters, scenes, and plot setup is especially helpful for children new to transitional books. For children of any age, series help ensure that there will always be a book to enjoy that is similar to the last one the child has read. For a reader who is just learning how to navigate around a library, it is...