HOME SCHOOL BOOK REVIEW
Book: When Hugo Went to School
Author: Anne F. Rockwell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing, reprinted in 1991
ISBN-10: 0027773051
ISBN-13: 978-0027773057
Language level: 1 (nothing objectionable)
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Rating: 4 stars (GOOD)
Reviewed by Wayne S. Walker
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Rockwell, Anne F. When Hugo Went to School (published in 1990 by Macmillan Publishing Company, 866 Third Ave., New York City, NY 10022). Anne Rockwell is a fairly well-known author and illustrator of children’s books. Edythe M. McGovern, in her 1980 They’re Never Too Young for Books, listed some thirteen Rockwell books for children at that time, and Gladys Hunt lists two of her "toddler picture books" in Honey for a Child’s Heart. She is also recommended in Elaine K. McEwan’s How to Raise a Reader and Elizabeth Wilson’s Books Children Love. When Hugo Went to School, basically a picture-type book, tells about how Hugo, a large dog, went with his master to visit the master’s sister and her family. Like Mary’s little lamb, he followed the sister’s children to school one day, was found by the police, and ultimately returned to his owner. It is good story for young children, either as a read aloud for preschool kids or as easy reading for beginning readers. My copy was discarded from the St. Louis County Library. I realize that these types of books come and go, and this one is apparently not in print because new copies are not available from Barnes and Noble, but it seems a shame to discard a book like this for much of the dreadful stuff that sometimes passes as even literature for small children today.
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