German Shepherds

Using simple text and colorful pictures, this book provides young readers with the physical description of the German shepherd and information on their care, personality, and history as a breed. Glossary terms are in red.  Quick Stats section at end of the book visually and numerically compares the German shepherd weight as heavier than a suitcase and its height as twice a basketball.  Contains a Table of Contents, Glossary, and Index.

Booklinks directs the reader to Abdo site where the book is selected using a search box.  One of the three links is to an information rich site, though the reading level is significantly higher than the K-1 reading level of the book.  One link is broken and the third is to a site with significant commercial intent.  The reader is also encouraged to visit Abdo Zoom Animals database, but will have not access to the information, since it is a paid site.

Lesser Spotted Animals: The Coolest Creatures You’ve Never Heard Of

This book “celebrates some of the thousands of mammals that never get seen or talked about even though they are every bit as amazing or weird or beautiful as their overexposed cousins.”  This book shines the limelight on some of the alternative mammals out there.  Among the interesting animals included in this book are one of the few poisonous mammals, an armadillo that plugs it’s burrow with its armored back end, a weasel-like creature that stinkier than a skunk, an underwater mole with a snorkel-like nose, a krill eating seal, and round eared rabbit-like creature.  For each of the 25 mammals highlighted in this book, there is a narrative description of what makes them interesting, illustrations, a map and basic facts about size, diet, habitat, and endangered status.  The illustrations are a bit cartoon-like, giving the animals personality.

Table of Contents incudes mini-portraits of each animal. Includes a large, partially illustrated Glossary.

 

Camels

Using simple text and colorful pictures, this book provides young readers with the physical characteristic, habitat, food, and life cycle of the camel. The habitat section includes a map of the Eastern Hemisphere.  Glossary terms are in red.  The way the glossary term ruminants is used in the text leads the reader to believe that it means “eats lots of food at once.” Quick Stats section at end of the book visually and numerically compares the camel’s height as shorter than a door and its weight as the same as a soda machine.  Contains a Table of Contents, Glossary, and Index.

Booklinks directs the reader to Abdo site where the book is selected using a search box.  The three provided links are to quality sites, but the content is significantly higher than the K-1 reading level of the book.  The reader is also encouraged to visit Abdo Zoom Animals database, but will have not access to the information, since it is a paid site.

Orangutans

Using simple text and colorful pictures, this book provides young readers with the physical characteristic, habitat, food, and life cycle of the orangutan. The habitat section includes a map of Southeast Asia.  Glossary terms are in red.  Quick Stats section at end of the book visually and numerically compares the orangutan’s height as shorter than a door and its weight as heavier than a toilet.  The former comparison has a difference of over 2 feet and the later comparison does not relate to something students experience as moveable.  Contains a Table of Contents, Glossary, and Index.

Booklinks directs the reader to Abdo site where the book is selected using a search box.  The three provided links are to quality sites, but the content is significantly higher than the K-1 reading level of the book.  The reader is also encouraged to visit Abdo Zoom Animals database, but will have not access to the information, since it is a paid site.

Alligators

Using simple text and colorful pictures, this book provides young readers with the physical characteristic, habitat, food, and life cycle of the alligator. The habitat section includes a map.  Glossary terms are in red.  Quick Stats section at end of the book visually and numerically compares the alligator’s length to a sofa and its weight to a soda machine.  Contains a Table of Contents, Glossary, and Index.

Booklinks directs the reader to Abdo site where the book is selected using a search box.  The three provided links are to quality sites, but the content is significantly higher than the K-1 reading level of the book.  The reader is also encouraged to visit Abdo Zoom Animals database, but will have not access to the information, since it is a paid site.

Apple Pigs

This reprint of a classic tells of a neglected tree that just needed someone to care.  The young girl clears away the rubbish, rakes, hoes, and plants flowers so that in spring the now proud tree flourishes like never before. It’s branches, leaves and blossoms give way to apples until its producing, “Plenty of apples/delicious to eat/juicy and crunchy/crisp and sweet.”  Apples keep coming, “The more we ate/the more they grew/the more we wondered/what to do.” Finally at the Apple Festival they made a pig of themselves eating apples prepared in so many different ways.  And you’re invited next year.

A good choice to celebrate fall and harvest time.

Boats

Using simple text, this book focuses on the science and technology behind boats.  It starts with the physics concept of density and why boats float followed by how different forces such as wind, paddles, propellers and engines can make a boat move .  The engineering concepts focus on how differences in the shape of the hull affect its ability to cut through the water.  Math is incorporated when discussing relative wind strengths in relation to sailboats.

This book effectively balances the need to simplify difficult science concepts and the opposite need to maintain enough complexity to communicate complicated concepts.  A solid choice for a library looking for STEAM titles for young readers.

Contains a table of contents, glossary, online links and a index.

Kindergarten is Cool

This is an cheerful portrayal of the first day of kindergarten.  Starting with excitement and nerves at home before school and moving on to the activities that take place in kindergarten.  Kindergarten is described more by the activities than the learning that takes place.  Nervousness makes way to optimism, “Now you’re BIG! You’re in school! And…. It really is cool!”

Colorful appealing illustrations portraying diverse smiling children.  I good choice for pre-school transition and the early days of kindergarten.

Priscilla Gorilla

Reading can lead to curiosity and passion. Priscilla talks about gorillas “morning, noon and night” after her dad gives her an All About Gorillas book for her birthday.  Her love of gorillas becomes part of everything thing she does, from school to the grocery store to her cloths.  Sometimes her love for gorillas interferes with school.  Priscilla’s gorilla-like antics mean she’s spending a lot of time in the class’s thinking corner getting her the label of troublemaker. Priscilla’s dad points out that her book says that gorilla’s cooperate and if that she’s going to be a troublemaker she should choose a different animal, like a skunk.  After much thought, Priscilla apologizes to her teacher.  On a trip to the zoo the impact of her love of gorillas is clear when her classmates can share many interesting facts about gorillas.  When Priscilla demonstrates her gorilla dance, the gorilla responds with a dance of his own.

Lizards

With photographs and simple text, this book provides an introduction to lizards.  The informational text on lizards includes common characteristics, habitat, and diet.  It also includes some specific information about the blue-tailed skink, gecko, and iguana.  The book would benefit from captions on the photographs.

Contains table of contents, glossary and index.

Linked online resources include photographs with a brief description of lizards.  Also included are downloadable print activities, links to elementary level informational websites, and a 4 minute video.  All links to external websites were dead links.

Penguins

With photographs and simple text, this book provides an introduction to penguins.  The heavy use of pronouns, make the simple text less effective. Bold words defined in the glossary include waddle, webbed and flippers, but skips the word krill.

Contains table of contents, glossary and index.

Linked online resources include a more in depth description of penguins with more photographs.  Also included are downloadable print activities, links to elementary level informational websites, and a 1 and a half minutes video.  One of the website links was dead link.

The White House

With photographs and simple text, this book provides an introduction to the White House.  The heavy use of pronouns, particularly the word “it” make the simple text less effective.

Contains table of contents, glossary and index.

Linked online resources include a more in depth description of the White House with photographs.  Also included are downloadable print activities, links to elementary level informational websites, and a 2 minutes video of still animation, music, and textual information.  All online material are more appropriate for grades 2-5 so it does not match the audience of the actual book.

Treat

Is there anything a dog loves more than a treat? Woken from a dream of treats by an encouraging smell, the dog races off for the chance to earn any sort of treat. He tries all his best tricks first for a toddler eating cheerios, then a young girl with a hot dog, a young boy coloring with no food, grandma with dentures in a glass, grandpa brushing his teeth and finally an infant with a bottle.  His discouragement is evident until finally he’s called to his bowl for a treat, only to find it filled with toys not treats. Dejected, he retreats to pile of laundry to dream of his lost treats.  As the dream turns into a nightmare of monstrous dentures chasing him, he wakes to the call of “treeeeeeat….” The 2 girls have created a masterpiece of topped with dog bones and chunks of dried dog food.  What a treat!

The word, “treat” is the only word in the book.  The tone and expression in the repeated word, “treat”is seen in the expression of the dog and supported by the punctuation, font size and style.  Sure to be a hit as a read aloud but also a good example of the power of expression to convey meaning.

Different? Same!

The animal world is a diverse interesting place.  What do things as different as a zebra and a bumblebee or a hedgehog and a chameleon have in common?  This book explores differences while highlighting the similarities.  Each two page spread contains four illustrated animals and a description of how they are different in some way; appearance, behavior, or habitat. Then readers are invited to look closer.  Each spread closes with the unifying similarity, “We all have…”

The animal illustrations have expressive cartoon-ish expressions. The back matter contains explanations of why animals have each of the similar characteristics described in the book.

Use this title to invite young children to think critically about the world around them. Use in a science lesson or to help students recognize their similarities to the many diverse people of the world.

Whoosh!: Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions

Whoosh is science success story of an African American man made particularly accessible to students by their first-hand knowledge of one of his inventions, the Super Soaker. The story begins with Lonnie’s childhood in Mobile, Alabama and the challenges he faced in pursuing his love of invention. Lonnie wanted to be an engineer, but an exam he took said he would not be a very good one. He was not discouraged by this challenge either.  At a 1968 science fair at the University of Alabama (only 5 years after allowing their first African American students), Lonnie’s home-made robot named Linex won his team first place.  From there he studied engineering at the Tuskegee Institute before working at NASA on the Galileo probe to Jupiter.  And still Lonnie tinkered with his own inventions at home. He came up with the Super Soaker idea while investigating refrigeration and air conditioning systems that were better for the environment than than those that used R-12.  One toy company after another refused to produce his invention.  His attempt to produce his inventions on his own flopped, leaving him in a discouraging and difficult financial situation.  He asked yet another toy company and they said “Wow” and now Super Soakers are sold everywhere.  With the money Lonnie earned from the sale of each Super Soaker, he now has an even bigger workshop where he continues to invent because, “facing challenges, solving problems, and building things is what Lonnie Johnson loves to do.”

This book belongs in every elementary library.

Shake a Leg, Egg

A single unhatched egg rests in a nest surrounded by four fluffy goslings.  Mother goose nudges the egg, “Hello in there! Are you aware…how long we’ve all been waiting?” A mother’s cajoling is picked up by the coots and crows. The world is moving through spring and life is brimming. The wait is measured by the bursting of buds and sprouts are breaking through.  The journey begins with, “A nest. An Egg. A chick like you.”  The four fluffy goslings look on as a beak breaks through the egg.  Finally the egg hatches a bewildered, bedraggled chick with a piece of shell still stuck to its beak. The gosling is urged out of the nest to discover, “The whole wide world is waiting.”

Warm colors and up close pictures lend the story intimacy and closeness.  The more panoramic views show the expanse of the world waiting to be explored.  The short rhythmic phrases feel like the baby steps picking up momentum until you’re running to catch up with spring.

Marine Biome

Using short simple sentences, this book starts by introducing the concept of biome as a large area with certain plants, animals and climate. It then explains that marine waters are biomes.  Of the three main marine biomes, oceans are the largest.  Coral reefs and estuaries, the other main marine biomes, are glossed over and never clearly identified in the text with headings or bold font.  Nor do the three main biomes appears in the glossary. Confusing the reader more, coral reefs are part of the ocean, yet in the book are considered separate from ocean biomes. The book would benefit from the use of non-fiction text features to clarify the complex concept of biomes without adding complexity to the text.

A few examples of plants and animals are given.  The climate of coral reefs is described.

Contains Table of Contents, Glossary, and Index.

When the World is Dreaming

The book starts with a 18th century Japanese Haiku about a butterfly dreaming while folding its wings. The remainder of the pages contain alternating 3 and 4 line rhyming verses for snake, deer, newt, rabbit, mouse, and turtle. For each of the 6 dreaming animals in the book, the first page is a 4 line recounting of the animal’s activities during the day; the second page is 3 lines describing where the animal shelters at night to dream; the third page is 4 lines describing the animal’s dream; the fourth page is always a 3 line refrain, “Sleep, Little (animal)/ Safe and warm/ Dream until the light of morn.”  The Little Dreamer can be found exploring on each of the pages describing the animals day.  The book ends with the child, Little Dreamer asleep in bed dreaming of the six animals joining her until morn.

Rather than using this book as a bedtime read-aloud, use it for writing lessons focused on clear concise descriptive language and the use of text structure to reinforce a message.

Grumbles from the Town: Mother-Goose Voices with a Twist

The book begins with Mother Goose sailing into view.  The introductory poem explains that the intent is to “remix old songs anew to turn them into something true fro modern singer, wingers, readings.”  The authors take 14 selected nursery rhymes from around the world and reinvent them in two unique poems with different voices, playing with points of view.  The dog complaining about the snoring when its pouring (It’s Raining, It’s Pouring), a pie tuckered out from all the thumbs (Little Jack Horner) a happy fiddle (Old King Cole) are just a few of the fun twists on the originals.  This book is similar to the author’s first book Grumbles from the Forest: Fairy-Tale Voices with a Twist.

A great choice for teaching point of view or for writers workshop.

The end of the book includes the original nursery rhymes as well as background on each original.  The book wraps up with a farewell poem from Mother Goose.

 

Maxi the Little Taxi

Maxi is a brand new taxi, flashy and bright.  He heads out for his first day of work with an enthusiastic smile.  In all his zipping and zooming he found lots of puddles, sticky fingers, and even a friendly pigeon left her mark. Now Maxi no longer sparkled – he looked more like Mr. Gooey-Goo.  No one wanted to ride is a dirty taxi! When he saw a boy and his mother wave, he zoomed over and stopped.  They weren’t excited about such a dirty taxi, but they had a solution – a car wash across the way.  Max was afraid to enter, but got sucked in anyway.  With a rumm, pish, flip-flop and blip blop the brushes tickled his muffler, bumper, and hubs. Out he zoomed, shining again.  The day ends with Maxi returning home without a bump or scratch.  His friend Mr. Buddy gives him an extra polish before tucking him in.

Fun rhyming language make this a good read aloud for young children.

The Music in George’s Head: George Gershwin Creates Rhapsody in Blue

George heard music all the time, but no one even knew music was important to him until his mother got a second-hand piano.  While his brother, Ira wasn’t interested, George raced over and amazed his mother by pounding out a popular ragtime tune. After that, George studied with famous piano teachers and began composing. At 17 he sold his first tune. By 1920, everyone knew of George Gershwin and his music.  He combined classical, ragtime, jazz and blues in wild, unpredictable ways to create his rhapsody, a “musical kaleidoscope of America’s melting pot,” Rhapsody in Blue.  The world premiere took place on February 12, 1924 in Aeolian Hall, New York.

Wonderfully descriptive language helps the reader hear the music of the story.  Text is accentuated in places with colorful swirling words and phrases.  Much of the illustrations are done in tones of blue as befitting a book about Rhapsody in Blue.

Includes Author’s and Illustrator’s Notes, Timeline, and Selected Bibliography

The Branch

A young girl falls asleep listening to a winter storm and dreams of her tree castle where she’s the queen sitting on a throne of branches. She’s awoken by the creak, crack, crash and thud of her favorite branch falling in an ice storm.  She’s devastated.  It isn’t just a branch to her and she’s unwilling to give it up.  Her mother agrees to let her keep it for a little while. During the cleanup of the neighborhood, the girl notices the elderly next-door neighbor, Mr. Frank with his chainsaw.  Mr Frank notices the girls long face.  Mr. Frank helps the girl recognize the potential in the fallen branch.  With tools, time, and elbow grease, the two work together on weekends and sometimes after school in Mr. Frank’s workshop.  They draw plans, measure, saw, dry the wood, plane, make holes, sand, and varnish. Finally their creation is pictured – a swing. Now her branch can again be her castle, her spy base, her ship.

A story of the importance of imagination, creativity, and relationships.

Old Turtle: Questions of the Heart

It had been such a long time that Old Turtle was just a legend, a story told late at night. But the people were haunted by questions they had no answers for.  When the questions are brought to the Old Woman, she knows the stories of Old Turtle are real and he hold the answers. Those who follow the whisperings of their hearts will find him.  The trusted few were tasked to speak for the people and ask their important questions.  The journey was long, but their hearts finally led them to Old Turtle.  The questions of their hearts; What is our purpose in life? How do we find happiness? Can you tell us about play? Speak to us of evil. And what about death? culminate with, Who are you and how will you live this day?  The answers to these deep meaningful questions tie us to each other and to creation itself.

While as powerful a message as the 2 previous Old Turtle books, the magnitude of the questions asked and the answers given are a bit overwhelming, making this aless effective book .  Each of the “important” questions is worthy of its own book.

Beautiful watercolor illustrations enhance the emotions of the book.

Tales for the Perfect Child

The humorously titled, Tales for the Perfect Child is a collection of stories featuring 8 children who, despite initial appearances, are anything but perfect. Arthur ruins his clothes so he doesn’t have to visit Aunt Eunice. Gloria purposely breaks dishes so she doesn’t have to help in the kitchen, Harry hides his carrots in his pocket instead of eating them, and Harriet whines. Students will easily recognize the mischievous behaviors from their own experiences.

With 8 short chapters, simple text, and sthis is a good choice for young developing readers. Sergio Ruzzier’s 3 tone illustrations decorate this new edition of Heide’s previously published work (1985).  A classic sure to bring laughs, though the dated language and names reduce its kid appeal.

Willa: The Story of Willa Cather, an American Writer

Willa Cather, a great American author writing in the early 1900’s is known for writing stories about the land with strong female characters.  Unlike many girls at the time, Willa was encouraged by her parents to become whoever she wanted to be.  Even as a child, she chose a path different from other girls.

The chunky nature of the book makes it difficult to glean biographical information.  Each new section of the book focuses on a specific time without transitions or connections.  The episodic telling of parts of Willa’s early life, however, feeds well into the later references made between her writing and memorable times and places from her younger years.

One drawback of the book is the disconnect between the subject matter and the reading level.  Willa Cather’s work is typically introduced to students at the high school level, yet this biography is more appropriate for upper elementary and middle school.  As a study of a historical era or of a strong woman brave enough to challenge societal norms, this is a good addition to a library.