Pig seems to be always making trouble; messing up the living room mat, shattering a beautiful vase, and ripping up a dress. With an innocent bug-eyed look, Pig blames his friend Trevor. Poor Trevor doesn’t understand how his friend can do this to him. Pig’s next scheme, however, catches up with him. As he climbs up to grab a bag of treats from the to shelf, a bowling ball behind the treats falls and smashes him in the head. He’s learned his lesson!

Expressive illustrations, rhyming text and engaging characters make this a fun picture book for storytime.

This leveled reader from Dash! (imprint of Abdo) describes for young readers what a cat needs and some of the behaviors to expect from a pet cat. Colorful cat photographs directly support the text. Unlike some leveled readers, this title contains enough text to effectively communicate meaning, yet the volume of text brief enough to not overwhelm young readers. Readers will walk away understanding the basics of cat care.

Contains table of contents, glossary, index, and online resources.

Sayre again celebrates the diversity and beauty of nature this time with a book showing the explosion of color and shape of flowers in bloom. Oversized book format makes the close-up color photos a good companion for a story time focusing on spring or flowers.

Leaves emerge./Stalks surge./Bloom boom!
Bulbs send./Tips extend./Bloom boom!

The sparse, but rich language encourages readers to delve into the nuances of scientific descriptions.

An adventurous young girl sets out for her first trip by herself to visit her great-grandma on her birthday. Her mother shares the red cape she used to wear when she was a child visiting her grandma. The little girl decided she also wants to be called Little Red Riding Hood. Not far into the woods Little Red Riding Hood meets a wolf. The wolf assures her that he’s a big friendly wolf, not the big bad wolf. When the wolf finds out that he hasn’t been invited to Granny’s party, he sets off with a growl. Along her journey, Little Red Riding Hood gathers friends; beaver, bear, mountain goat, and fox to join the birthday party. Granny is thrilled with the visitors and they had a lovely party until the wolf crashes through the door. All the partygoers fear for their lives, but wolf is just in a hurry to share the beautiful blueberry birthday cake he made for Granny. While his Great-granddaddy Wolf was good at swallowing old ladies, he prefers making sweet treats.

A unique version of the classic Little Red Riding Hood that incorporates the animals and geography of the Pacific Northwest. Also available in the series, Three Bears of the Pacific Northwest.

Mimi is so small, she sometimes thinks she should be called Mini. Mimi is frustrated of the things she cannot do because of her size. Her friends and family try to cheer her up by sharing all the positive things about being small. Mimi tries to focus on those positives, but can only find a few examples on her own. One day when her Dad gets her after school, he has a surprise to share – a new baby sister. Now that Mimi is the big sister and she reassures her tiny sister that one day, she’ll be a big too.

Sweet watercolor illustrations help portray Mimi’s frustrations and joys. A good title to encourage self-esteem and self-acceptance.

From tree to sea, from sun to stones and from bees to whales the natural world around us can teach us valuable lessons on how to live. These messages from nature are shared through both words and pictures.

  
'A baby bird shows me how not to be afraid
to spread my wings and fly.
I'll never find out how high
I can soar unless I try.' 

This beautiful book shares uplifting and encouraging messages while celebrating the natural world. A lovely read aloud and a great support for Social Emotional Learning lessons.

Melia spends her days measuring, testing, reading, and observing as she creates things in her lab. Jo spends her days singing, crouching, leaping, whirling, and twirling while she expresses the world around her creatively through the arts. They seem to have nothing in common and at first aggravate each other, but together they turn out to be a dream team. Jo’s unconventional creative thinking inspires Melia to look beyond what is right in front of her. The pairing of scientific thinking and creative thinking leads to inventive solutions.

A good title to support the STEAM movement. Also encourages the acceptance of others and the benefits of working together.

An introduction of the role of coal in energy production past and present. The book begins by identifying coal, where it is found, and its uses. It continues with an historical explanation of the invention of the steam engine and its reliance on coal. The invention of early steam engines is then tied to the current use of steam turbines to create electricity using coal. The book concludes with the fact that coal creates pollution and that scientists are working to create new coal power plants that are better for the environment.

Large font and simple sentences make this book easy for young students to read. The flow between topics lacks smooth transitions, particularly the significance of the invention of the steam engine. The Table of Contents only includes three entrees, All About Coal Energy (all the text), Think About it (a 2 page spread with one question), and the Glossary.

Starting with Nina Simone singing a lullaby to her baby, the story is told as if Nina were telling her child about the role of music and segregation in her early life. The white and black keys are a metaphor of the relationship between white and black Americans. At 12 years old, Nina showed her resolve when she refused to play when her mother was made to leave the front row of her concert when white people arrived. The story-like quality and the short concise message make this complex concept accessible to younger children. It reinforces the fact that the struggle for civil rights involved many amazing leaders from all walks of life.

A baby bird discovers his wings, perches on the edge of the nest and flings himself off the edge. He plummets to the ground into a puddle. Now he’s soaking, dinged up, and rather forlorn. Then he discovers worms! He grabs a worm and launches himself back up to the nest. His nestmates great him with a song and he flies loops of joy.

This story it told through pictures and only a few words. And each of those words ends with -ing; wings, clings, flings, stings, dings, things, brings, springs, sings, rings, zings. Even with only a handful of words, the reader can feel the adventure and sense of accomplishment.

The story offers wonderful opportunities for word play or student retelling and elaboration.

In this sequel to One Word from Sophia, Noodle the giraffe has Sophia feeling happysad. Sophia’s One True Desire comes with giraffe-sized problems. Her family might overlook the sloppy giraffe kisses, but the giraffe snoring keeps everyone up and has them wanting a permanent solution. In her efforts, Sophia reaches out to experts and through trial and error comes up with an effective giraffe muffling device.

Interesting and nuanced vocabulary enhance the story. An excellent read aloud for intermediate grades with its STEM focus, clever female character, biracial family, and challenging vocabulary.

Endpapers include facts about giraffes and a glossary.

In this fifth book in the Hank the Pet Sitter series, Hank agrees to watch Melissa’s 5 chicks. When he lifted the lid for closer look, all 5 escaped. Even with his sister’s help, he cannot catch them. Finally he gets the idea to answer their peeps with a bawk of his own. Soon he was leading the chicks back to their box. When Melissa returns, Hank is worn out, but the chicks are all safe.

The premise of the Hank the Pet Sitter series is that Hank is working to raise money to replace a bike that was destroyed by his carelessness. Both this premise and previous adventures are alluded to in this story so reading the first four books in the series will influence the reader’s understanding and appreciation of the plot.

In this nearly wordless picture book, a young girl would rather be using her small electronic device than going to the zoo with her mom and pesky toddler siblings. Sullenly she tags along through the zoo until her mom makes her climb up onto the Monkey Walk, an elevated platform. When she stops to look over the edge, something snatches her zoo hat. At first annoyed, she realizes she didn’t really want the hat, she wants to play on her device. When she pulls it out of her pocket, something blows on her. She sets her device down to deal with the blowing and something grabs the device. There is no way she’s okay with that. The story continues with her bargaining with the animals until her device is returned. The adventure has her leaving the zoo with a smile on her face.

Expressive engaging illustrations tell the story in panels large enough for a group read aloud.

In Rory’s new school, none of the many clubs seem like a good fit.  He gives the Astronaut, Prancing Unicorn and the Extra Math Homework Clubs a try, but they didn’t seem quite right.  His mom and dad encourage him to start his own club about something he loves.  More than anything, Rory loves reptiles.  Rory gives out Reptile Club fliers and puts up posters at school.  No one seems interested.  His first meeting starts and he’s about to give up because no one showed up, when he hears whispering in the hall.  When he opens the door, he finds a crocodile, anaconda, and a gecko.

Lots of fun reptile facts are interspersed in the story.  Unfortunately there is one section that encourages confusion between fact and opinion.  “It is fact that I adore Rocky Road ice cream,” and “It is a fact that I think Barry the basilisk lizard is a big show-off.”  While it’s possible to use this confusion as a teaching opportunity, it is also way to easy for young readers to miss the contradiction.

“It’s easy for me to wash up after I get dirty.  But cleaning the Earth isn’t so easy.”  This book in the Go Green series does a great job at making the a huge concept approachable for young learners.  Rather than place blame or bemoan the situation, the focus is on everyday behaviors that can help reduce pollution such as saving power, the three Rs, and driving less.

Illustrations provide colorful and engaging support for the story.

This book features 8 birds with a unique and interesting body features.  Each informational spread on the bird’s unique body part is prefaced with a spread asking the reader, “What bird has a (body part) like this?” with a close up illustration of that body part.  The informational spread includes a description of the bird, its unique body part and how that adaptation helps the bird survive.  It also includes an illustration of the bird in its natural habitat. Eight additional birds are briefly highlighted in the “Other Awesome Birds” section at the end of the book.

A good choice to support primary level science curriculum, but also sure to be a hit with young animal lovers.

This book starts with discussing the danger of floods, then defines what a flood is and identifies different types of floods.  It concludes with ways to protect people and property from floods.  Simple text and color photographs make this is good choice for young readers.

Glossary contains Tier 2 academic vocabulary (absorb, bank, evacuation, raging) but not the Tier 3 domain specific vocabulary introduced in the book, specifically levee, fluvial flood, coastal flood, or flash flood.

The bulk of this book focuses on weather and ends with a two page spread explaining climate and climate change. Information is communicated in a visually appealing and stimulating way with small chunks of text interspersed with diagrams and illustrations.

My reservations with this book are two fold: the title implies a greater focus on climate.  The interdependence and differentiation between weather and climate are only addressed briefly at the very end of the book.  Secondly, I found some of the factual information misleading or even incorrect.  For example it claims that absolute zero is the coldest possible temperature (p. 12) which scientifically is incorrect.  While it is true that lightening can be hotter than the surface of the sun (p. 21), both the sun’s atmosphere and all other layers of the sun far exceed the temperature of lightening.

Despite these reservations, I still recommend this book as an appealing informational text on weather.

Contains an explanation of exactly how hurricanes and tornadoes happen, real life examples, as well as discussing the potential impact of climate change on future storms.  Information is provided in small text blurbs, usually with a heading and supporting image.  Since this title focuses on the extreme storms, it would fit best as supporting material of a larger unit study.

Eye catching pictures, some of which appear to be digitally generated, are  often not attributed to any specific weather event creating misleading images.  When attribution is given, it is immersed in text so would only be evident to someone who reads the whole text.  Diagrams and maps add important supporting information.

Includes Table of Contents, Index, and Timeline

Large font, simple words and sentences, and colorful photographs makes this a good title for young readers.  Topics include the body, habitat, food, and life cycle of the sturgeon. Bold red vocabulary words are defined in the glossary.  Key concepts are introduced, but then not clearly explained (such as barbels and omnivore).  Quick Stats section provides the average weight of the beluga and shovelnose sturgeons and then compares them to everyday household objects – a refrigerator and a book.  Online Resources can be accessed from abdobooklinks.com and include educational sites with information appropriate for older readers.

Includes Table of Contents, Glossary, and Index.

Ranger Red Fox takes the reader on a tour of the Grand Tetons National Park in Wyoming.  Information includes the basic history of the park, including the geology of how the areas were formed, as well as Native American original inhabitants and early explorers. Ranger Red Fox then describes the scenic sites and activities, and flora and fauna in the parks.  At the end of the text, there is a field guide of animals, wildlife by the numbers, a map and map challenge, wildflower tracker, glossary and index.

Stunning photographs support the text.  Animated Ranger Red Fox livens up the telling. A fun engaging read.

This title in the Strange and Wonderful series is a VERY detailed nonfiction book about spiders.  Information includes species classification, anatomy, different habitats, webs, reproduction, hunting techniques.  Specific details are provided about different species, highlighting the diversity of spiders.  The tone comes across as somewhat conversational, including suggestions on overcoming arachnophobia. While using scientific terms and detailed illustrations, the lack of a table of contents or index makes it less useful for research.  Recommendations in the “To Learn More” section include materials that range in interest level from preschool to adult.

A sure hit with kids interested in spiders and other creepy crawlies.

An in depth history of the Cassini satellite launched in 1997 to study Saturn and its moons. Begins with the basics of the planet, then describes the satellites long 7 year journey.  Cassini satellite provided the most detailed images of Saturn ever seen.  It then  observed Saturn’s rings and moons for more than a decade. Includes details on the Titan Huygens Probe, the first landing on a moon in the outer solar system.  In 2017, as its nuclear fuel was running out, scientists gave it Cassini one last mission; send as much data as possible as it plunged into Saturn’s atmosphere. 

Highlighted ‘extreme facts’ on each page are high interest. Colorful photographs and diagrams

Memorial Day is explained in simple text with both historical and current photographs. The book focuses on the origins and traditions associated with the celebration of Memorial Day. Concepts are covered at a developmental level that corresponds with the target audience.  Vocabulary words found in the glossary are in bold.

Included are directions on how to make a tissue paper poppy to honor fallen soldiers.

With simple text and colorful pictures, this title provides young readers an introduction to President’s Day.  The book starts by describing President’s Day and who celebrates it.  Also included is information on the origins and traditions of President’s Day as well as directions on how to make George Washington’s wig.

Dry, sparse information and complex concepts without adequate explanation makes this title less appealing for young readers.