Fly Guy Meets Fly Girl!

Arnold, Todd. Fly Guy Meets Fly Girl! Scholastic Inc., 2010. 30 pages. $6.99. ISBN 9780545110297.

Summary:

Funny and a little bit gross are appealing literary qualities to many early readers and the Fly Guy series are a perfect match. In this volume, Fly Guy and his human, Buzz, meet Liz and Fly Girl. The two pairs start new friendships and find many common interests: eating gross stuff and doing tricks (Fly Guy and Fly Girl) and fly pet ownership and playing on the swings (Liz and Buzz). Young readers will enjoy the silliness of the speech bubbles of the flies’ conversations: “Wuzzle Wuzzie! Wuzza! Wuzzup!” The illustrations have a cartoon feel that matches the tone of the story.

Curriculum Connections:

This text fits many of the criteria that Horning (2010) outlines for early readers: large text size, lots of white space on the page, simple sentences, short “chapters, ”and only three to five words on a line. Engaging the youngest readers with these simple and funny texts will reinforce sight words and be enjoyable for them to read.

Personal Reflections:

I can think of many reluctant readers (boys and girls) who would find these books funny and fun to read; it is a popular series for beginning readers. Arnold has hit the perfect interests of this target audience that will help them build skills and confidence.

Awards:

Age/Interest Range:

5-8

Genre/Themes:

Humor, Early Reader, Level 1

Read-Alikes:

Mo Willems’ series of early readers, Elephant and Piggie, are written at a similar level (Level 1) and with a silly sense of humor that will appeal to the very youngest readers.