The Best Book to Read

The Best Book to Read, written by Debbie Bertram and Susan Bloom and illustrated by Michael Garland, is unfortunately, not the best book to read. Furthermore, it is quite a bit far from being the best book to read. Reading a book about finding and reading books is repetitive and unnecessary.

The only thing that saves this book, the same thing that saves most lacking stories, is the quality of the illustrations in The Best Book to Read. Garland's graphic illustrations are very well done; bright and fun, they animate the story and help add life to the book. The Best Book to Read contains nice, rhyming verses which start out fun, but eventually grow old after succumbing to the less than exciting theme of the story.

Likely written in hopes of inspiring young readers, Bertram and Bloom present a story about students taking a field trip to the library. There, the students are introduced to all sorts of books that can be found in different genres. Again, without Garland's illustrations, none of this would be remotely interesting. It is Garland's illustrations that depict the scenes and examples of stories in the library that make finding books in the library fascinating. Still, the book is not fascinating.

In the end, if the day is ever saved, it is Garland who does it. Even buying this book for a bookworm isn't so ideal. Who needs a book about books? If a story about stories has illustrations more fun than the story, it seems to defeat the whole purpose of the book. Maybe next time they will try writing a story about illustrations; even that would be less redundant and tedious.