A Short History of Valentine's Day

by Sally Lee

Young readers learn about the early traditions which have led to our present-day celebration of Valentine's Day.

Genres: Holiday

24 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2015

Reviews

[S.A. Krishnan]

Informative for older kids
Short informative book about the possible origins of Valentine’s day and how it became what it is today. Nice narration and short book meant for older kids.

[☼Pam Might Read Too Much ☼]

STRUCTURE
This oversized book is at the Second Grade reading level. AR = 2.6

It has 231 words which makes it a nice read for young children who are intimidated by big paragraphs of text. Most pages have 4 lines of text; and I should note that the font is HUGE.

Like most Pebble Plus books you have the text on the left side and full color images on the opposing page; color running to the page edges.

CONTENT
I like this book and think that Sally Lee did a good job. (You should note I'm not a scholar on this subject so I took her facts at face value.) She points out that no one really knows how the celebration of Valentine's day began. She explains that some people think it began with St. Valentine --either because he married soldiers secretly in Rome back when it was illegal or because he was killed because he was Christian and the Catholic Church decided to remember him on February 14th.

She follows up with some more lore and then delves into the charming history of how people used to exchange homemade cards to give to those they care about, and how while this is still done, that someone had the idea of making very affordable pre-printed cards.

Good read-aloud. There isn't a ton of text so good for practice reading. The large size makes it good for sharing with groups of children as well as just one or two.

~from the library

[Whole And]

A VERY short history of Valentine's. Brief and to the point but not for deeper insights or information.

[Andrew]

most basic and DULL intro for emerging readers about the holiday: the saint, Valentine, and the significance of birds, flowers and mostly cards associated with the holiday;

[KaitandMaddie]

A fast read, but still informative.