Russ and the Firehouse

by Janet Elizabeth Rickert, Pete McGahan (Illustrator)

Russ, a five-year-old with Down syndrome, visits his uncle's firehouse and gets to help with the daily chores.

Genres: Picture Books

24 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2000

Reviews

[Ali Book&Seaglasshunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple story of a young boy who visits a firehouse and spends the day helping the firefighters. Russ is a boy with Downs Syndrome, so this is a great book for adding diversity and inclusion to your read aloud rotation.
Since the book was published ~20 years ago, it’s a bit dated in using the terms fireman/firemen vs firefighter(s).

[Mallori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary: This is a simple children's book that depicts the day in the life of Russ, a little boy with down syndrome. He goes to help his uncle at the fire station for a day and sees how it is to work with a fireman.

Reading Level: Ages 4-8

Genre: Picture Book

Uses: Guided Reading, Independent Reading, Read-Aloud, Shared Reading

Social Issues: This is a great book for children to read to see what it is like to work at a fire station and how individuals with down syndrome can understand and work at an every day job just like everyone else.

Literary Elements: This book used high frequency words and a lot of repetition with words pertaining to fire stations. It would be an easy read for most children at this reading level.

Text & Image: The text matched the images that were all real photographs of Russ on his adventure. Because they were real photographs, it made reading this book more personal and entertaining.

[Jayme]

Audience: k-3

Genre: children's picture book

Theme: children coping with disabilities

Illustrations: Instead of using painted pictures, the book has real photographs of Russ visiting the firehouse, making it more real for readers. Children can see directly what his experience was like when he got to help out the fireman.

Use: Teachers could read this book aloud to show children that we are all capable of anything. Most children probably will not know somebody like Russ so it will be hard for them to understand until they read the book. After reading the story, children could share their ideas on other activities Russ could do.

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

On a week where you lose one or more story time sessions due to a mid-week holiday, why not have a special guest event? We did just that the week of Thanksgiving. The fire station is across the street, so we arranged a tour of the station immediately following story time. We had a full house of attendees, with lots of dads too!

We introduced the event with one of my favorite "firehouse" books: Russ and the Firehouse. What makes this book so good to use with story time?
It is large, so easy to see (about 8x12)
The photos are clear and bright
The story is engaging
Russ has Downs Syndrome, but this is not over-done.

Our guest fireman was introduced as we finished the story.

[Susan]

Katelyn says, "I fell asleep."