Homemade Books - Montessori Pink Series

I've searched the internet for free downloadable books that are suitable for use with the Montessori Pink Series level. (Links to my homemade books are at the end of this post)

I came across some but felt they werent suitable for the following reasons:
- too many words from Blue/Green series. For e.g. usage of c-v-c-v type words (instead of c-v-c), or blends
- too many sight words
- pictures aren't attractive. For e.g. some are black & white; most are clip art type illustration

I've not had time to search the bookshops for suitable ones. My friend, the kindergarten principal suggested Ladybird series. I presume she meant the Peter and Jane series. I browsed the series last year at my in-law's house. I think it's still not what I'm looking for. I also want books with a high rate of word repetition. I'm also looking for a series with a good variety of books at any particular reading level.

She did suggest the Scholastic's Clifford series, which she has and will bring along to show me next week. I'm very grateful for her help! I do hope it's suitable for my son's current reading level.

Another friend, also a Montessori trained kindergarten principal, suggested I take a look at the Grolier series. I couldnt find much about written about it on the internet. It's part of the Scholastic group. The perception I have of Scholastic books are that they're really expensive! I remember taking a look at their catalogue, given at the SEGi Appreciation Day & getting a shock at their listed price.

Perhaps I'm too demanding. As usual, if I cant find what I want in the market, and if I can make it myself, I will!

I've made over 20 mini books (and counting). Very very time consuming - so much time required in planning, organising, searching for photos, making the softcopies, and assembling.

For each book,
- I target one or 2 words that will be repeated many times
- I'm careful with the choice of words, sticking to c-v-c or v-c decodeable words in Pink Series
- I introduce very limited non-decodeable sight/high frequency words. For e.g. I've only used words like: a, the, I, he, but not all those words together in a single book.
- I keep it short with each book having between 4-10 pages, depending on the length of the phrase or sentence.
- Each page has only 1 phrase or sentence.
- Deliberately chose larger font size
- 99% of the photos used are "real", not illustrations
- I've tried to make it attractive by adding colour where appropriate e.g. on the front & back cover, borders of each page.

If you know where I can get early reader books, either softcopies from the internet, or printed copies at the bookshops, please do let me know. My email is on my profile. It'll save me a huge amount of time. For the moment, it ought to meet the criteria above. Most importantly, it should contain more than 75% Pink Series words, with high repetition of target words.

I plan to share some of the mini Pink Series books, in future postings.

Update - here are links to some of my homemade books that I think are suitable for the Montessori Pink Series level. It is not in sequential order, so please use your wisdom in choosing which ones to start introducing the child to (for e.g. the earlier books he read do not have sight words, but those books may in fact appear lower down or in the middle of the list below)
http://humbledmum-myjourney.blogspot.com/2009/10/homemade-book-pink-series-so.html

http://humbledmum-myjourney.blogspot.com/2009/10/homemade-books-pink-series-bad-cats.html

http://humbledmum-myjourney.blogspot.com/2009/10/homemade-book-pink-series-who.html

http://humbledmum-myjourney.blogspot.com/2009/10/homemade-book-pink-series-dogs-in.html

http://humbledmum-myjourney.blogspot.com/2009/10/homemade-book-pink-series-get-out-cat.html

http://humbledmum-myjourney.blogspot.com/2009/10/homemade-book-pink-series-dog-in.html

http://humbledmum-myjourney.blogspot.com/2009/10/homemade-book-pink-series-fun.html

http://humbledmum-myjourney.blogspot.com/2009/10/homemade-book-pink-series-i-am.html