Sebastian's Promise

Alison Mews is co-ordinator of the Centre for Instructional Services at
Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Part of the Hodgepog series, Sebastian’s Promise is aimed at the Grade
2 reader. The story is slight—Sebastian tries unsuccessfully to find
his sick sister’s stuffed toy but stumbles upon it at the end.

As is appropriate for early chapter books, the type is fairly large,
the paragraphs short and double-spaced, and each chapter begins with a
simple line illustration. Unfortunately, the sentence structure has a
strict subject-verb-object format, which is painfully repetitive. For
instance, “Sebastian saw” begins five successive paragraphs on one
page. Molnar also models the teacher’s adage to answer in complete
sentences by repeating whole sentences from one character to another and
limits her adjectives to “very,” “big,” and “huge.”

In all, this book reads like a textbook supplement for beginning
readers and has more pedagogical uses than recreational. The only
satisfaction children will get from reading it is the accomplishment of
completing a chapter book, which may be a worthwhile goal. However,
neither the story, the vocabulary, nor the language structure will
entice children to read for pleasure. Not recommended.