In the early 1920s, my mother learned to read using New Canadian Readers, collections that included a rich selection of folk tales, nursery rhymes, legends, fables, hymns, poetry, and original fiction. She considered the school readers of my 1950s childhood bland and boring. I didn’t care. I adored the Wonder bread world of Pleasant Street, of Dick, Jane, Sally, washing lines, cookies, pets, and the helpful fireman who mended Molly’s doll.

Readers and reading schemes come and go. The teaching of reading causes anxiety all around and controversy is nothing new. The latest battle, whole language duking it out against phonics, is only one in a history of tensions between those who see reading as the mastery of a series of discrete steps and those who talk more in terms of meaning, voice, and narrative.

As reading texts swing back and forth, trade publishers periodically come up with the sensible idea of engaging real writers and real illustrators to create real books in the reader format. Until recently Canadian children have had to rely largely on imports to fill this need. Now, however, we’re getting a nice selection of homegrown easy reads. Formac’s First Novels series gets it just right – small format, large type, generous illustrations, and ebullient stories. This season sees some welcome additions to the genre.

Else Minarik’s Little Bear, illustrated by Maurice Sendak and published in 1957, was a ground-breaking book and the first in the Harper I Can Read series. Our own Jean Little joins this august tradition with Emma’s Magic Winter. In seven short chapters we trace the story of a friendship. Emma is shy. Sally is new. (The style seems to be contagious.) Together they triumph over their difficulties with the aid of their magic boots. This kind of writing is harder than it looks: I speak as one who has tried and failed. Little has a gift for it. The story’s rhythm, repetition, gentle humour, and confident child-centrism add up to a delightful read. Illustrations by Jennifer Plecas capture the mood of the text and have an off-centre quality reminiscent of New Yorker cartoons, especially in her portrayal of squiggly objects.

Meanwhile, Fitzhenry & Whiteside weigh in with the First Flight series – three levels of reader and a first chapter book. Fishes in the Ocean by Maggee Spicer and Richard Thompson is an energetic and rhythmical counting book with a text that rollicks right along and illustrations by Barbara Hartmann that portray a world as warm and safe as Pleasant Street. The page layout supports the idea of parents and children reading in tandem, and the shape of the story – the events in a preschooler’s day – is very satisfying.

With level two we encounter Jingle Bells by Maryann Kovalski, a reader-format variation on her picture book of the same name. This offering has the kind of unity that only an author/illustrator can produce, and it’s a hoot. The jokes play out between words and pictures. For example, in one scene, Jenny, Joanna, and Grandma are travelling to the airport.

“‘I hope we did not forget anything,’ said Jenny. ‘I hope we did not forget anything,’ said Joanna. ‘Oh, I do hope we did not forget anything,’ said Grandma.” We turn the page to a picture of a porter handling a mountain of luggage. “‘I do not think that you forgot anything,’ said the man who carried the bags.”

A scene of inflight chaos accompanies the lines: “They got crayons. They got juice. They got up and down.” Incorporating the lyrics to “Jingle Bells,” this reader makes use of the common-sense but powerful fact that it’s easier to read words when you know them already. Find a six-year-old and enjoy.

Andrew’s Magnificent Mountain of Mittens by Deanne Lee Bingham, with illustrations by Kim LaFave, meets us at level three. Here we have more text, arranged in chapters, a school setting, and a tall tale involving an uncontrollable excess of mittens à la sorcerer’s apprentice. Again, it seems just the ticket for the intended audience.

The series loses its energy a bit with level four. The Money Boot by Ginny Russell, illustrated by John Mardon, is a chapter book. The story of Jim and his friend Gary and their discovery of stolen gold coins during a Toronto snowstorm is slow to get moving, and the 12 line drawings (one per chapter) are less original than illustrations in the earlier books. The greater freedom afforded a writer for this level of reading competece has not resulted in a really compelling narrative.

Stoddart’s The Red Corduroy Shirt by Joseph Kertes, illustrated by Peter Perko, looks like an easy-to-read novel but is much more like an illustrated short story. With a work of this originality, classifications aren’t really useful. In this first-person vignette, set in the 1960s, Jake tells of a difficult situation involving his friend Jerry. Jake’s family are immigrants from Hungary. Jerry’s parents run Hom’s Cleaners. Jake, new to the English language, admires Jerry’s corduroy shirt and wonders what kind of animal a corduroy is. Jerry, in a burst of generosity, gives Jake the shirt. But Jake’s family will not allow him to accept the gift, and when he returns it Jerry’s family is deeply offended. Mutual adult prejudice forms a dark background to the understated, moving, and completely authentic depiction of the friendship between the two boys. Kertes packs a lot of complicated emotion into a plain and simple text and Perko’s illustrations capture its introspective quality. The conclusion of the story is much less fixed than usual in books for this age. Open-ended and real, this is the sort of story that reminds us what learning to read is all about.