Amanda Harvey

I loved this inspirational picture book because it brought dogs and bullying into real life. When Otis got bullied for having big ears, I felt bad for him, but also instantly thought "that's how he's supposed to be!" As the story went on, Otis felt the same way, which made me happy that I could relate to the book, but also that I understood the main message of the story. Otis became confident in his ears, and stood up to the bullies the next time around, which I loved as the moral of the story because I believe it is important for everyone to believe this.… (más)

A component of the National Geographic Kids blog, DogEared is a blog about books with reviews written by a selected committee of kids ages 10-14. The “online book club” includes reviews on all types of fiction and nonfiction books and is allows kids to feel part of a community of readers. Parental controls on the site prevent commenting without parent approval. The blog is a bit difficult to navigate without extensive use of the browser’s “back” button and though there is a keyword search box on the blog (which works well for a genre, title or author keyword search), there is no index of book reviews included on the site. Unfortunately, the search box searches all blogs in the National Geographic Kids community, so a search for “mice” returns results of book reviews about mice, or with “mice” in the title along with articles from the other blogs about mice. This site would be a good resource for a classroom discussion of writing book reviews or for students to preview books, but someone would have to make sure in advance that a review for the book exists within the blog to prevent young user frustration.… (más)

Otis is walking in the park when another dog calls him “Big Ears," and suddenly his ears really seem far too big. He begins to worry all the time, even trying all sorts of different styles for his ears before he realizes that his ears are part of what makes him unique. The way that Harvey tells the story allows for the moral of accepting oneself to be presented without sounding moralistic or preachy. The simplistic, hilarious illustrations will have children laughing at all of the different ways Otis tries to style his ears. Highly Recommended. Ages 3-6.… (más)