Bach (Famous Children Series)

Rating:
Summary: Needs more facts, less speculative dialogue
Review: My daughter had to do a biography book report on Bach, and came home with a book written in 1932. I bought six of these "famous children" books to supplement the school library. Although they are listed as appropriate for ages 4-8, I would say ages 4-6 is more accurate. Particularly annoying is the ficticious dialogue included. One of the famous composers is quoted as saying "Yuck!" in response to something he doesn't like. The print would be better spent on narrative facts about their lives and childhood rather than the silly dialogue. It wouldn't hurt to include a bit more information on the adult life of the composers, since nothing currently exists in the literature geared for children.
The books in the series by Tony Hart don't suffer this same problem. They are filled with artwork by the artists and generic dialogue that is more believable. A huge gap still exists for biographical information on these great people, especially for the 8 to 12 year old crowd. As a side note, the Beethoven book sent to us was in Spanish. This was a problem for another customer of this series, so someone needs to do a better job of managing the merchandise.

Rating:
Summary: Keeps A Child's Interest
Review: Nice Large Type, but Vocabulary seems a bit large in a few places.