100. Bears Beware by Patricia Reilly Giff

Bears Beware by Patricia Reilly Giff. Illustrated by Alisdair Bright.  (US) - (Canada) - (Kindle)
ZigZag Kids, #5

Pages: 80
Ages: 6+
Finished: Apr. 3, 2012
First Published: Apr. 10, 2012
Publisher: Dell Yearling
Genre: children, early chapter book, realistic fiction
Rating: 3/5


First sentence: "School was over for the day."

Publisher's Summary: Mitchell really doesn't want to go camping with the other kids at the Zigzag Afternoon Center. Sleeping in the woods with creepy crawly things, coyotes, and bears? Yikes! But his best friend Habib is going, and it's Mitchell's birthday that weekend. He's just got to find a way to be brave, and scare the bears away!

Acquired: Received an egalley  from Netgalley.

Reason for Reading: Ds read aloud to me for his reader.  He is becoming fond of reading on the Kindle.

Giff is popular for writing several of this sort of early chapter book series featuring a group of children and their adventures.  This is our first time reading a Zigzag Kids book and we had no problem jumping into book 5.  Presumably, it is like her other series in which there is no continuous story and no need to read the books in any particular order.  I wish more books had the actual reading level on them so I could see how my reading disabled son is doing but this was somewhat hard for him, depending on the day.  He wouldn't have been able to read it without my help, but it was easy enough that he did not find it frustrating at all.  He enjoyed the story, though not overly much.  I think I enjoyed more than he did.  I know he related to the story since he is afraid of what camping will be like and is gearing up for his first sleep over, which he is not looking forward to at all.  The story did make these issues seem less frightening than he has thought them to be.  I enjoyed the camaraderie between the children and adults.  Everyone was pleasant and there was no backtalk, nor did the children have attitudes.  The group of children in this series is large and while Mitchell is the main character in this book, I can surmise that different books would feature different characters, though bringing everyone into play, even if only for small parts.  I like this as it keeps a series fresh and entertaining.  Ds says he's not interested in reading any other Zigzag Kids books, but I am going to go back and read the first few to get a better feel for the series as I think this could be one I would recommend.  I certainly recommend this one book.  It is entertaining and humorous at times, though not exactly exciting.