First Dance

Head Over Heels #1

by Lea Taddonio, Mina Price (Illustrations)

Lola Jones does not think her big brother's best friend and basketball teammate, C.J Kline, knows she's alive. Until one magical night at a high school dance changes everything. Aligned to Common Core standards and correlated to state standards. Spellbound is an imprint of Magic Wagon, a division of ABDO.

Genres: Romance, Young Adult

ebook

Published December 15, 2016

Reviews

[Jahmier · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought the book was not that good because it had a lot of romantic things in it and I don't really like romantic things but I don't recommend this to you unless you like romantic things.

[Sherry Scheline · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I wanted to give this book a 1 star review because I was like this is weird. It is a picture book that is only 49 pages and one would think by a glance that it is for a 1st-2nd grader. It is really a book for an upper middle school child or high school student. I raised my review to a 3 because I read a few additional books from this series and I got thinking that once you are past judging the book by just a tiny bit more than the cover it is o.k. If you had a junior high student or high school student that was perhaps struggling with reading and you wanted to assign a chapter book for them, this book would be a good read because of the simplicity.
It is certainly not award winning writing, but the illustrations are actually o.k. I was just a bit put off by the slightly more mature subject matter than appears by first glance. Also the book is on EPIC and marked for 3rd graders. A 3rd grade child could read it, but it is pretty mature content. Kissing, relationships, school dances, dating, etc...

[Tompkins County Public Library Youth Services]

This is a simple, charming romance series set in what appears to be a predominantly African American high school. Despite the older characters, the reading level for this series is at a second grade level. This makes it a wonderful selection for people looking for high interest books with a lower reading level or for anyone who is looking for a simple story about an innocent romance. Along with the lower reading level, some of the words are additionally written in a font that hints at the word meaning – for example the word “jumps” is written in a way that the word looks as if it is actually jumping. The full-page colored illustrations also help with comprehension and deciphering meaning. A fun plot with diverse characters hand in hand with a lot of reading support.

[Wintermote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like other reviewer‘s, I was a bit perplexed by this book. There is not a lot of substance. Literally she goes to a dance and talks with a guy. The end. I can see this being interesting to a middle school or high school reader who is really really struggling. You can give them a sense of accomplishment in finishing a book as well as an interesting subject. I thought that illustrations were well done and then varied fonts used added to the visual appeal.

[LaSheba Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute! Lola, a high school freshman, deals with emotions related to her first crush and an overprotective older brother.

The book has a short storyline, that is simple and wholesome, with great illustrations. And it is a part of a series. Some of the words in the text are enlarged and bold--gives a bit of graphic novel vibes. This would be a good book choice for tweens.