Plunger does not want to be a plunger anymore, it wants to be a vase. Soon other household items want to be different things. The vacuum is so adamant that they have to be what they already are that he makes a mess, spraying dust everywhere. Vacuum realizes that nothing bad would happen if others got to be what they wanted.

The artwork is vibrant and jumps off the page. While I feel that the idea of the story, that we can be whatever we want, is important, I am not sure that it is effective with some of the items chosen. I think kids will be attracted to the vibrant colors and will find the book funny, but may miss the idea that you can be whatever you want.

Another book in the Ordinary People Change the World Series, I am Malala Yousafzai, starts out with Malala introducing herself as an ordinary girl who likes pink, cupcakes, and pizza. The narrative quickly turns to how girls in her country are not treated the same as boys. It discusses the school started by her father and her quest to seek education. It does depict when she was shot and does show someone holding a gun. The illustrations show Malala as a young girl throughout the entire book. The end includes a timeline and photographs of Malala.

Sylvie the spider loves the people in her building and one day she notices that something seems wrong. Worried that not everyone appreciates a spider that calls attention to herself, she finds the courage to unite the people in the building. Finally she feels the appreciation and friendship that she has been longing for.

The author also wrote the book, Truman, and Truman the tortoise makes an appearance in this book as well. It was fun to see that tie in. The illustrations in the book are colorful and help tell the story, but the storyline is difficult to follow and requires inferencing.

I am I. M. Pei is a part of the Ordinary People Change the World Series by Brad Meltzer. It begins with I. M. Pei’s childhood and is told in the first person. The book is written in a conversational tone and the illustrator, Christopher Eliopoulos includes comic inserts on various pages. There is a lot of text on the pages, but it is broken up with illustrations. As a child, I. M. Pei is drawn as a miniature adult and in the pages where he is an adult, he is much shorter and more childlike than the other adults in the illustrations. This book is only a brief look at his life. The themes of persistence and grit come across throughout the biography. When talking about the renovation of the Louvre, there is a page with a pop-up Louvre. A timeline of his life and pictures of I. M. Pei are included at the end of the book.

The lyrical text describes animals that live in groups and using the collective nouns and then names an animal that lives alone. I like the use of collective nouns and the text is engaging. I was expecting to learn more information about the solitary animals, but I did learn which animals live in groups and what the group names are called. There is a page at the back that answers some questions about why some animals live alone. The artwork in the book is bright and vibrant and is eye-catching.

Frog is an artist but he needed some inspiration for his art because his swamp was dull. He went around to his friends in the forest and adds his artistic interpretations. His friends do not appreciate him beautifying everything. He realizes he got carried away and returns to his swamp to create his own art show. He invites his friends to his art show so he can apologize.

Frog is fun and his personality comes through in the illustrations. He learns that he needs to respect other’s spaces. I do wish it had shown Frog helping his friends clean up the messes that he made.

The book was originally published in London, so there is some spelling differences in the book that kids might notice (colour/color). The text changes between black and white, but sometimes the page is dark and the text is still black which makes it a challenge to read.

Lenny loves baseball and he loves reading in his Big Book of Baseball Facts. He wants to play in the big leagues one day. In his very first game a ball is hit to him, but Lenny hides behind his glove. Lenny decides that he loves reading about baseball, but he is not good playing at it. His dad says that he just needs to practice. Lenny’s dad helps Lenny practice catching pop flies. Lenny learns that he does not have to be great all of the time and at everything.

The Barking Ballad by Julie Paschkis is an interactive picture book. The author has used a stanza from Oliver Goldsmith’s poem “An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog” to build her own poem. The book starts out with a cat that was left behind when someone moved away and she is wandering around alone and hungry. One day a dog is hit on the head by a falling rock and the cat takes care of the dog. Soon the cat and the dog are friends and are inseparable.

Throughout the book, the reader will find red dots which mean the readers should bark and yellow diamonds which mean the reader should meow. In a read-aloud, the reader would need to figure out a way to demonstrate when the audience should bark or meow. This book is geared towards pre-readers but there is some vocabulary that would need to be defined for them (bereft).