We Go To Bo

Learning to read is difficult. We need to recognize that certain combinations of letters correspond to certain sounds and meanings. That's not easy for adults when learning a new language. Imagine how hard that is for children, both because they're so young and because they never made this mental breakthrough before. When I taught my kids to read, I tried to make this big leap a little easier by choosing books with the shortest possible words. But every book I found had some long words. I wondered if a book could be written using only short words. How short? 4 letters? No problem. 3 letters. Sure. OK, then, let's push it further. What about 2 letters? Hmm, that would be a challenge, especially to make a story that's interesting, with characters, action, and humor. I listed the common 2-letter words: very few verbs, plenty of prepositions. How could I use this odd vocabulary? Bubbles move all sorts of ways, thus they were a great prop to soak up many 2-letter prepositions. I discovered Joanna Pasek's charming watercolor illustrations online, and we worked together to create WE GO TO BO. We aimed to make the book as easy as possible for beginning readers. We chose large, capital letters to make words clear and obvious. I hope you can use this book to introduce children to the wide world of words.--Larry Baum