Sam and Nate

Deborah Dowson is a Canadian children’s librarian living in Powell,
Ohio.

Sam and Nate are both new students at Fir Creek Elementary School and
they sit next to each other in Mrs. Licorices’s class. They begin to
write notes to each other through the message centre and although they
have a little disagreement, they soon agree to be friends. When their
teacher moves their seats and they can’t be in the same research
groups together, they still help each other when they each encounter a
difficulty with their group. When their teacher adopts a child and
decides to stay at home, she is replaced by a bumbling, inexperienced
teacher and Sam and Nate decide to show him how things work in the
classroom. Despite the challenges, all the kids in the class learn
something during the term.

Orca Echoes chapter books are designed for beginning readers at the
Grade 2 reading level. Although the format of this title is in keeping
with others in the series, the story is awkward in the way it jumps from
the note sharing, to dinosaurs, to whales, then weather. The main
characters seem mature in the way they are aware of the adult’s goofy
behaviour, but immature in the way they want to dress alike all in green
and eat only green food. Other than that, they are not very remarkable.
Young readers may be able to relate to this classroom world, but may not
find a book based on a classroom syllabus to be very exciting.
Recommended with reservations.