ABeCeDarian easy reader series

About a year after I first put finger to keyboard, the ten book easy reader series I wrote and illustrated for ABeCeDarian Company is available for purchase! 


The series follows the ABeCeDarian method, which introduces children to letter sounds a few at a time. This means that storybook 1 only uses 2-3 letter words with the consonants c, f, m, p, s, and t and the short vowels a and o, along with the high frequency word 'the'. Before I started to write, I made a list of all the 2-3 letter words I could think of that use only these letter sounds:

am at can cap cat cot Dan fan fat mad map mat nag nap pad pan pat sad Sam sat tap did dim din dip fib fig fin fit hid in it pin pit rib rid rim rip sip sit tin tip mom mop not on cod cop cot dot mom mop nod pod pop pot sop Tom top tot

It’s a short list and, needless to say, writing the first book was a challenge. With the help of ABeCeDarian founder Michael Bend, I settled on a question format for this and two other books in the series. In these books children are asked questions such as, “Did the cat sit on the map?” The answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no, and the child must read the text accurately to answer correctly. 

Coloring Page from ABeCeDarian Level A, storybook 1. Click on image to enlarge or download PDF

I felt it was important that there be continuity through the series, so books 1-8 (including the three question-format books) all involve a boy named Sam, his pets and his family. Books 9 and 10 introduce two entirely new characters, Frog and Duck. 

Writing and illustrating the books was a blast, and I hope kids have as much fun reading them as I had writing them.