Series Info

The first five George and Martha readers written by James Marshall.

Books:

1. George and Martha (2007)
2. George and Martha: Two Great Friends (2007)
3. George and Martha: Round and Round (2008)
4. George and Martha: The Best of Friends (2008)
5. George and Martha: One More Time (2009)
6. George and Martha: Rise and Shine (2009)
7. George and Martha: One Fine Day James Marshall (2010)
8. George and Martha: Full of Surprises (2010)

Links: Houghton Mifflin Harcout || Green Light Readers

Reviews: Horn Book,

Difficulty

Each volume has two to three classic George and Martha stories reproduced with smaller illustrations and (from my examination) little to no text changes. The stories vary in length and difficulty — some are incredibly easy for beginning readers and others include words like “flabbergasted”.

Accelerated Reader average was 2.03 based on six of the readers. Lexile only had scores available for one reader and it was scored at 470L. I looked at three books and found the following unique word counts: Two Great Friends at 140, Round and Round at 195, and Best of Friends at 177.

Thoughts

I’m not sure that these work at the best beginning readers. The humor and laughter from the original stories is there, but the complexity of the words and lack of consistency in the length of the stories may frustrate beginning readers.

More George and Martha?

The original picture books, of course!

1. George and Martha (1972)
2. George and Martha Encore (1973)
3. George and Martha Rise and Shine (1976)
4. George and Martha Full of Surprises (1976)
5. George and Martha One Fine Day (1978)
6. George and Martha Tons of Fun (1980)
7. George and Martha Back In Town (1984)
8. George and Martha Round and Round (1988)

Dates to Remember

Doesn’t look like there will be any more George and Martha beginning readers, but that makes sense as author James Marshall passed away in 1992.