Francine and Brain wanted to get revenge for Muffy tricking the judges of the science fair,so they wrote love notes to her.

As part of our school counseling program and character education program, I read Perfect Pigs to my students. This is a fun book and gives the students a different viewpoint on manners. It also helps me promote reading and literature with the students.

"Arthur and the Best Coach Ever" is the fourth of six books in the 2001 Arthur Good Sports series. This is a great series that teaches kids about sportsmanship in an interesting as well as humorous way. However, this book, "Arthur and the Best Coach Ever," shows are startling lack of coordination between those working on the television show and those were developing the book series.

Both the television story and the book share a couple basic plot points. The soccer coach for Lakewood Elementary is no longer able to coach the team and Ed Crosswire is brought in as a replacement. In both versions, none of the kids are very happy, as they liked the old coach and Ed's coaching abilities are rather questionable.

The similarities stop about right there. In the book, Ed is presented as an inept coach who knows nothing about soccer and is always ignoring the team while he tries to run his automotive business from the sidelines. The team members begin to feel like they don't care about them, although really he's just caught in a pickle because he has no understanding of basic soccer concepts, or how to coach a team.

The exact opposite happens in the television episode. In the TV version, Ed seems to be quite knowledgable of soccer, even having played in the past, and tries to run the team like a machine, putting them through overly demanding drills.

Overall, "Arthur and the Best Coach Ever" is an okay story and in my opinion, somewhat better than the television version. Still, the lack of synergy between the TV show and the book causes confusion among followers of the seires and I'm not entirely certain what exactly this particular book teaches kids about good sportsmanship. Also, some of the humor found in the other "Arthur" books is missing. Pass on this one, and try one of the other, better, "Arthur" books instead.

Are you a cell-phone toting, work-a-holic parent? Busy cutting business deals on the soccer field? Then this book will leave you feeling a little sheepish. I know of quite a few sports parents who could stand to read this book for the lesson it teaches. As for the kids, maybe what they learn is that they should keep trying their best no matter how miserable their coach is!

I have watched the episode based on the book. It was a great episode and I'm sure that the book would be just as good.

I was so disappointed in this book! We love Arthur, but a few lines in this book are totally inappropriate for young children. "[Mr. Ratburn] sleeps in a coffin and drinks human blood." "A big black car drove up. 'Who died?' said Francine. 'Maybe Mr. Ratburn!' said Arthur." This story is about lying and cheating. These lines could have been changed to more appropriate language and the moral of the book would not have been affected at all.

Arthur and the True Francine Book Review

Arthur and the True Francine is a really good book. Arthur finds out who really copied the answers on the test. Marc Brown is the author and I like the way he writes. I liked the different characters. My favorite characters are Arthur and Buster. I learned from this story that copying answers is not a good thing.

...

As a children's librarian, I must say I'm not fond of many series books. We are always trying to get children to read OTHER books. However, I grew up with Arthur and I do enjoy the books in his series. This is one of the best. It's an excellent story about honesty that portrays children realistically. I hear them talk to each other daily and this is how they talk about their teachers, each other, and school. This one's well worth the read!

Forget this one. I've loved the other books in the Bright and Early, but this is a genuine stinker. The book's "cadence" is uneven. There are stretches where each page has only a brief sentence, and then one page will be jammed with an extremely long sentence. I especially didn't like how it provides very confusing messages for kids... for example, it outlines what sorts of wings are possible, citing examples of wings on animals and insects, and then it cites 'wings' on a couch. It tells kids that there can't be wings on bears and cats, but at the end, it says that there are wings in outer space and shows robots on a distant planet. I just believe that it should either be fiction and let kids dream about possibilities or referential, but not try to be both.

This book is simple enough for any beginning reader. The illustrations are silly and amusing. This book would be great for teachers to use in a transportation, wind, or insects unit. My kids loved the rhythm of the rhyming text, and you will too!

This book is simple enough for any beginning reader. The illustrations are silly and amusing. This book would be great for teachers to use in a transportation, wind, or insects unit. My kids loved the rhythm of the rhyming text, and you will too!

We thought Buster's Dino Dilemma was so-so. We thought it stunk because Buster was lying and that is a sin. It was very naughty because Buster stole the foot fossil. The foot fossil was very important because it came from a dinosaur and somebody found it. It was really bad because Buster was keeping secrets.You shouldn't read this book because maybe you will learn to steal and lie.

Buster's Dino Dilemma was fabulous. It was good because Buster thought about giving the fossil back, so he did. Buster gave the fossil back to Ranger Ruth but he didn't give the fossil before. It was bad because Buster didn't give the fossil back but then he did. It was great because Ranger Ruth didn't get mad at Buster because Buster got punshed before in a dream and she put the fossil on the showing place so everybody could look.People who like dinosaurs read it!People who don`t like dinosaurs pick something else.

This is delightful chapter book that manages to be both funny and educational. My nephew adored it. Buster and Arthur learn how fossils were created in Rainbow Rock State Park over hundreds of millions of years. Then they get the chance to go on a fossil hunt - not in cliffs like professional paleontologists, but in streams where kids and amateurs can learn how it's done. When Buster finds what appears to be a small dinosaur fossil, he wants to keep it for himself. It makes him feel important. But is this really what's best for him or the fossil?

I read Arthur and the Goalie Ghost.
Thought it was an ok book because it did not give enough detail and it was not a good story. I would recommend this book for ages 6-9 because it is a fairly easy book to read. And it is in easy language to read and under stand. I recommend this book because it is about sports and it was easy to read.

This book is hilarious. We have read it about 10 times already. The whole series is good for sports minded kids and all of the stories are great, but this one takes the cake! The one thing that we wondered, however, is why Marc Brown gets top billing when it is Stephen Krensky who has written all of the books in this Good Sports series?

I'd read "The Tortoise and the Hare." Unfortunately, this isn't a good start to the Arthur Good Sports series, which has many good offerings. The idea is that a race is being held to raise money for reading. Fern, however, doesn't really seem interested in all of the crazy training everybody else is doing to get ready for the race. The thing is, readers who've read "The Tortoise and the Hare" can smell the ending a mile away. It's terribly predictable and overall not a very good story.

My son loved this book. I bought it awhile ago, when he was just learning to read. It wasn't the right time. So, it set forgotten on a shelf. A year or two later, when one rainy Sunday afternoon he ran out of his favourite Magic Tree House books, we found this one. And he loved it. It is a little bit more challanging to read, but he sailed right through it!

Someone has to tell me the "Big Secret" why the author goes all over the place rather than dealing directly with "Talking About Sex With Girls and Boys." And it's more baffling when you consider that the publishers have recently placed out of print their hallmark book on the subject, "How Babies Are Made," which so beautifully, simply,and directly has been enormously successfull in dealing with sex education for youngsters since 1969. I'm all for improvement, but this new book sure doesn't do it!

I bought this book for my eight year old son who was already posing questions like, "What is sex ?". I found the book informative enough to answer his innocent questions, yet delicate enough to address when talking about sex is appropriate and who to talk to if you have more questions than the book answers. We gave our son a week to look over the book and read it several times. At the end of the week, both his father and I sat down with him to answer any questions he might still have. To our delight, the only question remaining in his mind was how to pronounce the word...

Last summer I read this book to my then just turned 7 & just turned 4 yr old and the youngest was completely clueless as to what I trying to get across. The oldest understood somewhat, wasn't all that interested, but still managed to let a few giggles out. She took the book and read it herself. When I later asked her if she had any questions for me, she had none but commented that it was "embarrassing". The book was put away to age a little longer....
Earlier this week I re-read the book to both of them, now almost 5 and almost 8. The 5 yr old is still clueless and bored with all of it. The 8 yr old seemed a bit more interested and less embarrassed. She took the book and again read it to herself and asked a few "why" questions but nothing I couldn't handle.
In my opinion, this book is great for 7 - 10 yr olds (1st - 3rd grade), not the pre-school - grade 3 that it is catagorized. Enough for 7 - 10 yr olds to comprehend and enough for this age to know. Not overwhelming in technical terms or detail nor is it written in baby terms. I agree with a previous reviewer. When the teen years arrive, more information, terms & detail will need to be divulged but for this pre-teen age. For pre-teens, this book is perfect.

If you look at the cover, it shows the current Arthur. INSIDE the book is the, I am guessing, first generation arthur that really looks like an aardvark. The crude pictures inside are confusing to the child. Avoid this arthur book and move on the the next one.

Overall we thought that this book was a good book for children. It was aimed for children at about the kindergarten to first grade level. A good aspect of this book is it is directed at boys and girls, something that would work well in a classroom. The moral of Arthur's Eyes is good for children because it will help them get over a fear of needing glasses at a young age. This is shown through ways that children can relate to such as doing well on a quiz, being able to see in class, and making baskets in a basketball game. This book also included humor that young children could relate to such as the incident when Arthur walked into the girl's bathroom and Francine was in there. This is something that children at this age would find hilarious.
The only thing in this book that we found to be unappealing to anyone is that Arthur looks nothing like he does in the well-known cartoon. Besides none of the characters looking like they should, all of the illustrations were terrible. Without knowing that this is supposed to be an Arthur story, children wouldn't recognize the characters by looking at the pictures and this could confuse a young mind.

Arthur's Eyes is a tale about a Arthur getting his first pair of glasses, and
learning to be proud to wear them. Arthur is teased by his fellow
classmates and is embarrassed of having to wear glasses. He soon
learns that wearing glasses improves his school performance, and
eventually leads to his acceptance by his classmates. Arthur's Eyes
captured our attention with the colorful artwork, although at times the drawings were of low quality. The cover picture of Arthur is not the same picture portrayed in the actual book, and this maybe disappointing for children who are used to the PBS television show. However, the message the pictures convey are appropiate for the intended age group. The story is short enough for a young child to read in one sitting, which would be good for a bedtime story. Young children who read this book will learn to be proud of their personal image if they get eyeglasses. They will also learn to accept other children who wear glasses. We would recommend this book for classroom reading and as leisure reading.