Picture book of the week

Dickens: His Work and His World (Hardcover) by Michael Rosen and Robert Ingpen
2005, Candlewick Press, 96 pp.
ISBN: 0763627526

Here is another example of why picture books are not only for lower elementary school age children! We just finished Oliver Twist in Literature class at the tutoring center and I looked in the library for books on his life: this one more than met our needs! My middle school students can greatly benefit from this volume because it offers a succinct, illustrated summary of Charles Dickens' life and work. It offers much more than the "about the author" blurb on the back of a book and yet much more easily digestible information than a long biography on Dickens.

This book is truly outstanding: beginning for the author's dedication--to his father, who read aloud Dickens to his children under lamplight--and ending with a wonderful timeline and a fascinating illustration depicting all of Dickens's main characters all in one room!