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Rating: 
Summary: Labtops for everyone!
Review: Brothers class is chosing for a pilot project and they are each giving a labtop. Brother bear finds tons of fun stuff, chat's about sports, games about sports etc etc! It is all fun until the cubs witness a plan to bomb a house in a chatroom! Can the cubs stop it before it is too late?It is a great book. Loads of fun and information! Great for a first chapter book!
Rating: 
Summary: It would be better if this book were lost in cyberspace!
Review: I ordered my copy of Lost in Cyberspace, by Stan and Jan Berenstain and waited excitedly for its arrival. I teach computer science to elementary school children and I had plans of reading it to them. I was only on page four when my first "red flag" went up. Too-Tall, talking about his laptop computer, stated that the only thing allowed on his lap was his girlfriend, Queenie. Keep in mind that the target reading level is 3.5 (third or fourth grade). I thought to my self, "OK. I can skip this line…" On page six, Too-Tall calls someone a nerd-faced twerp and threatens to hit him hard enough on the head that he will be looking through his belt buckle. I can't imagine reading something that violent to any child. At this point, figuring I could re-write a couple of sentences, I grabbed a pencil and made some notes. Finally realizing, by page 43, that I had wasted ..., I quit reading. Leading up to that point, there was a lot of discussion on the kids being in chat rooms. While they (the authors) did get around to mentioning safety rules for chat rooms, I am disturbed thinking that any third or fourth grade student would be allowed in an unsupervised chat room. I'll share with you the passage that made me realize the book is of no use to me and that the best place for it is in the garbage. "Just up the road at the McBear home, Queenie had a visitor. It was her cousin, Bermuda, who was quite a bit older than Queenie. She was very much into guys and was even allowed to date. Bermuda had been on-line for years and was looking over Queenie's shoulder as she checked out her favorite teen chat rooms and web sites. "Let me sit in for a minute, said Bermuda. I'll show you some real action." She took over Queenie's seat and after a few keystrokes, they were logged on to "Big Date! –the hottest dating service in cyberspace. "Oh, I don't think so," said Queenie. "It goes against Teacher Bob's rules…" "Will you relax?" said Bermuda. "We're not gonna date anybody, we're just gonna have a little fun." I say, "save your money!" With so much talk of violence and inappropriate Internet activity, Stan and Jan REALLY missed the boat on this one!
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