Once Again Sylvan Dell has published a children’s book that goes beyond just a simple story. Delightfully told in well-paced rhyme, Sort It Out, written by Barbara Mariconda and Illustrated by Sherry Rogers allow kids to take a different look at everyday items and the things they have in common.
Following Packy the Pack Rat into his room as he tries to sort his finds into meaningful groups, kids take a look at a jumble of odd items and find that they have more in common than they first expected. Packy takes each item and sorts it into a group of “like” items. Children reading along may want to sort them differently than Packy, which leads into the section For Creative Minds at the back of the book.
This cute little rhyming story has another twist at hand. There is a mystery afoot! Things are disappearing from Packy’s collection. Have your kids write down the items as you go along and see if they can figure out the connection before it’s revealed at the end.
Sherry Rogers’ illustrations for Sort It Out are bright and cheerful, with plenty of color and enough detail to keep children interested. Each of the versed pages ends with the final rhyming word built into the illustration, which is a nice devise to involve kids, as they seek out and read the final word in each of the illustrations.
As in all Sylvan Dell books for kids, Sort It Out has a section For Creative Minds in that back of the book.. There is a hidden picture challenge built into the first two-page spread in the book. There are exercises to help kids understand sorting methods, and a chart for scientific classification: non-living, animal, and plant. You’ll also find a set of sorting cards that can be copied and cut out, so that kids can try sorting the objects in different categories. This is also a great creative exercise to see how many different ways there are of sorting the same group of objects. Finally there is a “writing connection” on the last page that discusses using picture words to paint verbal images in the readers mind.
Sort It Out is a wonderful book to use with kids in so many ways. You can discuss classifications in science and math, poetic verse, and picturesque writing. This is a fun book for young readers who are just beginning to explore writing, or who are even pre-writing, if the parent or teacher would like to do dictated stories with them. Don’t be surprised if the kids come up with some connections that amaze you. Their nimble brains haven’t been trained into thinking as formulaic as many of their older siblings.
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