It drives me nuts when a book claims to be an ‘easy reader’ and it is truly anything but easy. Based on the rating systems that most publishers use, I am nuts most of the time.

I really am bothered by the fact that a new reader can pick up a book marked Level 1 and then be unable to read it. Talk about a fast and easy way to mess with a reader’s confidence.

So when I happen upon a book that is accurately marked, I really do smile.

The Tiny series by Cari Meister is one such group of books. Tiny is a large dog, much like Clifford, who has a human friend. Tiny and his friend go on big adventures with few words, supportive pictures and lots of white space. Most words are either easily decodable or sight words. If the words don’t fall into either of these categories they can often be deciphered by using context or picture clues.

If you have not yet met Tiny and you have a young reader, I strongly suggest that you find this great series. There is nothing like a true easy to read book to improve not only a child’s reading skills but their reading confidence as well.