Summary: Amber Brown has been friends with Justin since preschool. They are a great team, especially when they eat Oreo cookies. Amber and Justin’s class pretends that they are flying to a new place every time that they want to learn. But this last time amber is worried because her best friend might actually be flying away for real and she doesn’t want to lose her best friend.
Summary of Professional Review: The Horn Book Guide gave this book a rating of 2. The review said that “the format of the short novel, alternately funny and poignant, is particularly well suited to the audience, with wide margins, large type, and plenty of Ross's line drawings”. Kirkus’ review says that this “familiar story is nicely individualized in Amber’s buoyant, authentically childlike narration”.
Review by Ivette Thompson: This is a book that a lot of children can probably relate to. The author talks about amber’s parents getting a divorce and Justin’s parents not living together because his dad has to take a new job which offers a lot more money. These are issues that children encounter in real life and reading about it would probably help them relate to the story better. The author does a good job at developing the character of Amber Brown and Justin though the relationship that they have with each other. To show us a little of Amber’s personality, every time that she talked about herself she referred to herself as Amber Brown. The author used the repetition of “I, Amber Brown”. The author used rich language and was very descriptive.
This book would be useful when teaching…
· This book could be used to teach students the importance of having a few illustrations that help the readers make meaning of the story and about how to use them when writing narrative.
· This book can also be used to introduce a new way of learning about different countries or places. The teacher can adopt the Mr. Cohen’s way of teaching about different places by having their students board a plane and pretend to travel to a new country. The students can then do writing activities by writing letters to family members or friends.
Summary of Professional Review: The Horn Book Guide gave this book a rating of 2. The review said that “the format of the short novel, alternately funny and poignant, is particularly well suited to the audience, with wide margins, large type, and plenty of Ross's line drawings”. Kirkus’ review says that this “familiar story is nicely individualized in Amber’s buoyant, authentically childlike narration”.
Review by Ivette Thompson: This is a book that a lot of children can probably relate to. The author talks about amber’s parents getting a divorce and Justin’s parents not living together because his dad has to take a new job which offers a lot more money. These are issues that children encounter in real life and reading about it would probably help them relate to the story better. The author does a good job at developing the character of Amber Brown and Justin though the relationship that they have with each other. To show us a little of Amber’s personality, every time that she talked about herself she referred to herself as Amber Brown. The author used the repetition of “I, Amber Brown”. The author used rich language and was very descriptive.
This book would be useful when teaching…
· This book could be used to teach students the importance of having a few illustrations that help the readers make meaning of the story and about how to use them when writing narrative.
· This book can also be used to introduce a new way of learning about different countries or places. The teacher can adopt the Mr. Cohen’s way of teaching about different places by having their students board a plane and pretend to travel to a new country. The students can then do writing activities by writing letters to family members or friends.