Franklin and the Tin Flute

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

In these four early readers, based on the television episodes with the
same names from the Franklin animated series, Franklin inadvertently
creates a variety of problems and resolves them to his satisfaction.
Because of the popular appeal of the TV show and the restricted Level 2
vocabulary, the books will deliver a satisfying experience for
independent readers who still need a little help. Unfortunately, the
formulaic tales and cartoon characters lack the insight and
expressiveness that made the original Franklin stories so endearing.

In Franklin’s Library Book, Franklin loses the library book he
checked out and goes to elaborate lengths to hide the fact, eventually
discovering that Bear has the missing book. In Franklin’s Pond
Phantom, the young turtle believes that he espies the elusive phantom,
but learns of his mistake. Franklin and the Tin Flute is a cumulative
tale in which Franklin and his friends must retrace the path a tin flute
took when it was traded repeatedly, so that they can retrieve it. In
Franklin and the Cookies, he and Bear make 12 cookies and, as in Pat
Hutchins’s The Doorbell Rang, they must divide them to share. Instead,
they eat them all and must make two additional batches before they have
enough to share. Franklin’s mother, unaware he had indulged his greed,
praises him for sharing! A recipe for the cookies is embedded in the
story. None of these books are first-choice purchases, but Franklin and
the Cookies is not recommended.