The World's Fastest Boats (Built for Speed)

Discusses the history and development of some of the world's fastest boats, describing the specific features and specifications of such vessels as ice boats, catamarans, hydrofoils, and jetboats.

Grade 3-8-These books look at subjects that should tempt the most reluctant readers. They cover different types of cars, planes, and boats that vie for various speed records and include small full-color photographs of many of the models. Trying to simplify the explanation of highly technical aspects such as aerodynamic lift is difficult and can result in the overuse of the subject-verb-object sentence structure, making it stupefyingly dull for more advanced readers. Boats and Cars do a fair job at using the occasional introductory clause to vary the syntactic rhythm. Airplanes has the most technical material and sticks to short, simple sentences. That's not necessarily a bad thing for those with low skills who must write a report. It's just not very likely that readers who picked up the book for its subject or cool pictures will be inspired if they start to read it. Many youngsters will be more interested in the pictures than the words anyway.
Steve Clancy, Colonial Village Elementary School, Niagara Falls, NY
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