Synopsis
Boys and girls in early grades receive a fun-filled, informal introduction to French in this picture book, supplemented with an interactive CD�ROM. Kids go along with Harry and his friends as he visits France. Vivid full-page illustrations show scenes of Harry arriving at the airport, being driven to the home where he will stay as a guest, enjoying lunch in the kitchen, then playing at a beach, visiting a farm, exploring a town and its shops, going to a party, and finally returning to the airport for his flight home. All illustrations are filled with objects that kids will immediately recognize, each object labeled to identify it in French. For instance, an illustration of a village center shows a car (labeled la voiture) moving down the street . . . a boy preparing to ride his bicycle (le vélo) . . . a butcher shop with its sign above the window (la boucherie), and several other appropriately labeled objects. Each two-page spread also features a lift-the-flap phrasebook, in which the words are spelled out phonetically. The accompanying CD�ROM is filled with spoken examples of French to familiarize children with its sound, plus fun-to-play language-learning games. (Ages 7�10)
Reviews
Grade 1-4-In this picture-book dictionary, Harry goes to France for a week. Each of the 11 spreads revolves around a theme, such as the house, food, a farm, or a town, and introduces 10-20 French words. Each one also includes "Harry's phrasebook," a lift-the-flap vocabulary list with pronunciations. The book is colorfully illustrated with cartoon characters and comes with a CD-ROM containing vocabulary and four simple games. Harry and readers may learn a little French, but overall the book isn't very helpful. Only 150 words and phrases are included, with some odd choices and omissions (the toy store is mostly souvenirs, such as key chains and pins; the beach ignores terms for ocean, wave, sand, and fish; and there is nothing on body parts, weather, seasons, or school). Words in the "phrasebooks" appear in random order, and there is no general index. Many pronunciations are incorrect (the French j is "zh," not "sh," while "un" is definitely not "urn"). The CD contains additional terms not found in the book (with no translations), and some are spoken too quickly to clearly understand or mimic them. Irene Yates's My First French Picture Dictionary (Barron's, 2001) is equally colorful but has a more useful assortment of words (200+), as well as an index. Angela Wilkes's My First French Word Book (DK, 1993; o.p.) has 1000 terms and is the most attractive of the junior French dictionaries, but unfortunately lacks pronunciations.
Ann W. Moore, Schenectady County Public Library, NY
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