Genre: MulticulturalAwards: Oregon State Beverly Cleary Reader's Choice Award Master List; Great Early Elementary Reads, ALSC 2011-2012 Age Programs and Services Committee; Honor Book, 2011 Maryland Blue Crab Young Readers Award, Transitional Fiction; The Oregon Battle of the Books 2012 List; Winner 2010 Cybils: Short Chapter BookGrade Level: K-2I could use this book in my classroom to introduce the K-2 students to chapter books. In the book Freddie Romas comes home from school and finds a strange box. In the box is a pair of shoes that give him super speed. Weird things are happening where he lives and his friends at school need his help. Freddie uses his new found power to do good things. I would ask the students, if they found a pair of shoes that gave them super powers how would they use their powers to help others? This book also could be used for a vocabulary lesson. In the book Freddie uses some Spanish words. I would have the students pick those words out of the story and find the meanings and use them in a sentence. There's not much to this, but it's cute and the kids will like it. The beginning is a little slow, with too much time spent on introducing the characters for such a short book. As a result, the mystery is introduced and resolved in ten pages, which made the whole book feel slight. It's still an appealing early chapter book, with fun illustrations, magic powers, and (hooray!) a Hispanic main character. (I also like that Freddie solves the mystery using "brain power" instead of "zapato power." Nice!)
What do You think about Freddie Ramos Takes Off (2011)?
Great to see a story with a young Latino superhero. Freddy Ramos is an appealing character.
—Chelsea
Kids will love this one. A great new series.
—Lokiita
