I LOVE the illustrations! They are whimsical and fanciful and delightful, and they totally suit the nonsensical spirit of Wonderland.  They were almost enough to win me over from my usual distaste of abridgments.  But this isn’t even a whole abridgment.  Only if one takes the time to read the inside flap of the dust jacket does one know that this is the first half of Alice’s adventures.  It could have been really fabulous if they’d created a larger volume to include the complete story.  This way it falls a bit flat.

I’m not generally inclined to be a fan of abridgments, as I find them somewhat disrespectful to the author’s original work, but if you’re in the market for such a thing, this would be a reasonable choice.  It is a beginning chapter book, suitable for young readers, with short chapters and full-page color illustrations.  The illustrations suit the silliness of the story. It’s adequate for what it is.

It’s got a great title, and it’s written with a great voice, that brings out the personality of the main character.  The cartoonish illustrations, likewise, are drawn to contribute to the personality of the characters, but there’s a gray undertone to the color scheme that detracts and leaves them a bit drab.  The story itself is fine, but not especially compelling:  dog’s in trouble for wreaking havoc on the furniture, because she thinks she’s battling monsters, but it turns out that she needs glasses, so she gets taken to the doggy optometrist, tries on a bunch of glasses, but opts for contacts instead, and all is well.  It left me a bit flat.

A delightful story with a message we all need reminding of from time to time.  Told in rhyme with a poetic rhythm (without being too sing-songy), the story tells of a meek, tiny mouse who lives at the base of a large rock, perpetually ignored by all the other animals.  Atop the rock is the perch of the lion, whose loud roar and prideful boasting makes him impossible to ignore.  Deciding he needs a roar of his own to get himself noticed, Mouse works up the courage to face the only one who can teach him, and makes the long climb, overcoming his fear of becoming dinner in order to seek his goal.  Upon waking the lion with his timid request, we all discover the lion is afraid of mice, which puts the little guy in a place of power as he assures the lion he means no harm and would like to be friends.  So they both learned that day that no matter one’s size, “we all have a mouse and a lion inside.”  The illustrations give the characters personality and use perspective well to create a sense of drama.

This beautifully illustrated picture book uses the voice of Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson to describe the work and teachings of Gandhi, through the perspective of a young boy not fully the lessons he’s being taught and chaffing at the behavior expected of him.  He says of the eleven principle teachings of his grandfather, the one he struggled with the most was the teaching against waste.  In an act of defiance, one day he tosses his stubby little pencil into the grass, only to be sent into the night to spend hours hunting for it.  Eventually, his grandfather explains that wasting resources is a way form of taking from those who have less, and gives him an exercise to recognize the two types of violence: physical violence and passive violence, and the impacts all our thoughts and actions have upon the wider world.

Highly readable and highly informative.  It covers everything from the lore that surrounds owls from a variety of cultures, to the different types, anatomy, hunting, and mating.  A generally all-encompassing book, illustrated with beautiful watercolors that support text.

This is a book where the illustrations are crucial to telling the story. Told from the perspective of a solitary fox, the story opens with the words, “This is the forest where I lived with my family.”  Yet the illustration shows a suburban subdivision.  As the book continues, the fox reminisces about the times with his family, while he wanders through the human habitat.  The color scheme of the illustrations does an excellent job of contributing to the mood of the story, opening with dark and drab colors, brightening in the end, when the fox watches the strange two-leg humans digging near signs of a future wildlife preserve and a future wildlife underpass.  When his curiosity draws him through this strange empty burrow, he finds his way home, reunited with his family.  An author’s note in the back discusses conservation efforts working to minimize the impact of human encroachment on wild habitat.

A fun book for exploring language — namely words that have multiple meanings, both as nouns (specifically animals) and verbs.  Each page contains one very short sentence consisting of repeating words (Bats bat. Steers steer. Dogs dog dogs.), and silly, cartoonish illustrations that support the multiple meanings.  Just to be extra clear, within each illustration is also a brief definition of the verb (“to steer = to guide”).  A two-page spread in the very back offers further discourse on the origins of the different usages of each word, in case anyone is particularly curious.

It’s fun.  It’s a rhyming story, a counting story, and a build-upon-itself repeating story.  It begins in the middle of the sea with nothing to see; then there’s nothing to see but one tiny island just big enough for me and Annie McPhee; then two wee dogs who thought they were frogs, followed by three perky pigs wearing wigs….By the time they’ve spotted ten rascally rats skipping in hats, Annie McPhee shouts, “Too crowded for me!” and the two original island inhabitants set off to sea on the head of a whale, leaving the tiny island to the rest of the crowd.

It’s okay.  The illustrations are cute.  The theme is a popular one in children’s lit:  the fun to be had in exercising one’s imagination.  It tells of a young boy and elderly neighbor and all they imagine from her front porch swing (the cat that casts a shadow of a tiger, the tree root they imagine to be a dangerous snake in the grass, etc.) But I think there are better books that follow the same theme.  This one lacks much in the way of pizzaz or story arc.

The illustrations alone are enough to recommend this book.  They are beautiful and charming and fanciful.  The story is a bit heavy: an  allegory describing all the troubles that arise as Mother Nature keeps trying to make children of her own (by the names of Fear, Hate, Greed, Envy & Fickle), and then leaving them in the charge of the humans while she goes off to create the seasons.  Every time she returns, it’s to disastrous results, until she creates a set of twins, who managed to bring everyone else together in harmony (most of the time), whom she named Love.  Not exactly a light-hearted tale, but one that gives children a way to ponder some big ideas.

A charming story, told in rhyme, with really cute illustrations, makes the reader think twice about all the classic bad-guy characters.  In this book, the witches, trolls, dragons, giants, etc. are not really evil through and through — that’s just their day job.  In this book we see them gathering together at the end of the day, commiserating over their daily challenges, setting aside their grumbly ways, brushing teeth, reading stories, checking for princesses under the beds.  A good conversation starter to make one consider characters’ lives outside the stories.

It follows a fairly standard format of similar non-fiction counting books:  it’s got larger print offering a couple lines of rhyming text on each page that indicate how each number relates to octopuses, and then smaller text offers a paragraph or two elaborating on the original statement.  The illustrations are rather Steven Jenkins-ish, which attract young readers, and the text presents its information in a simple, direct manner, easy for young readers to comprehend.  The first nine numbers state assorted facts about octopuses; and number ten lists and describes ten different types of octopuses, including scale images to show their sizes relatives to humans.  The octopus crafts outlined on the final two pages seem a bit superfluous, but other than that it’s a solid choice for beginning informational text.

Somehow it seems almost sacrilege to give a Patricia Polacco book anything less than a Recommendation.  And I suppose this would be a worthy book to have if you want to have the complete works for an author study, but as Patricia Polacco books go, I was a bit disappointed.  It’s long and rambling and doesn’t seem to have a point other than telling the story of a woman for whom Thursday was lucky.  It tells about all the good things that happened on Thursday: being born, meeting the love of her life, sons being born, opening a diner, discovering her signature dish.  After her husband dies, she loses heart and closes her diner, until one day (on a Thursday) she discovers a kitten abandoned and wrapped in a towel with Thursday stitched on it, so naturally she names the kitten Thursday, and gradually she returns to cooking, reopens her diner, and on a Thursday a famous critic tastes a dish that came about because the cat knocked a bunch of ingredients together, and so she becomes rich and famous.  It’s okay, but it was a bit disappointing. I wanted it to have more purpose.

The simplicity of the story relegates it to the youngest readers, but there is lots of repetition in the text, which makes it especially appropriate for those students, as a scaffold for emergent readers.  The simplicity and matted color palette of the illustrations suit the story — that of a young owl who wakes up one evening excited to play, packs up his wagon, and sets off to find a friend to play with; unfortunately, all of his friends are sleepy, so he uses the items in his wagon to help tuck his friends in, and heads home at daybreak, sad that he was unable to find a playmate, only to find all his friends  newly awake, waiting at his home to play.  Of course, now he’s sleepy and must turn them down in like fashion (until after his nap).

Well, it’s definitely not an R*, which I really wanted it to be, since I recognized the kitty on the front from it’s partner book, Lost, which I absolutely loved.  I’m sorry to say this one did not live up to my hopes, and out of frustration I almost knocked it down to an additional purchase.  But I decided that wasn’t really fair.  Disappointment aside, the illustrations are strong, and kids will eat up the story of the cute kitty who sneaks into Mr. Fluffy Boots’s bag, gets a ride on his sleight and gets to visit his North Pole workshop, before deciding he really longs to be home.

Very real story, addressing a very typical challenge to friendship:  Paula, the beaver, and Maggie, the elephant, have been friends their whole lives.  Paul tells about all the fun things they’ve done together and all the nice things Maggie does for her.  But Veronica doesn’t agree. Veronica is an indeterminate animal, but based on her behavior, I’m deciding she’s a weasel.  Veronica whispers to Paula that she thinks Maggie is too big.  Paula knows she should stick up for Maggie, but makes the decision to play with Veronica and her posse, and ignores her life-long friend (but the illustrations make it clear she’s not comfortable with her choices.  Despite Paula turning her back on Maggie, when Veronica turns on Paula, Maggie comes charging to the rescue, proving that she’s a true friend, no matter what.  The illustrations alone show the hurt and contrition and forgiveness that are needed to mend the friendship after it’s been damaged, leading to the hopeful ending declaring that they’ll be friends forever.

I LOVE this book! The illustrations are simple, yet really charming and sweet.  The story is one every child can relate to:  it’s a whole series of things that Aberdeen didn’t mean to do, but circumstances keep leading him a little farther from home on an adventure that starts with following a red balloon that floated by.  Before he knows it, he’s alone and lost and it’s getting dark.  When Mom comes and finds him, he apologizes and says he didn’t mean to worry her.  Mom hugs him tight, and tells him she knows he didn’t mean to.  But he did.  I think it does a fabulous job of recognizing that very human experience of creating unintended consequences that wasn’t really what we meant to do, while also getting in that reminder that we need to acknowledge those consequences, whether or not it’s what we meant to do.

It’s basically a celebration of kids spending a day with Dad.  The illustrations and words work together to honor ordinary everyday delights, like pancake breakfasts and running errands and playing in the park and building forts and reading stories, while giving them some fun alligator twists (a fish tail sticking out of the pancake, bathtub letters spelling out, “swamp,” etc.)

The illustrations are fun, colorful, childlike cartoons.  The story is convoluted.  It starts out with a knight who rode away, but then the teller of the story remembers he didn’t actually have a horse, so he changes his mind and says that he strode away.  It continues is this manner — every time something is said to have happened, the narrator changes his mind and says it was really something else.  It rhymes more or less, but is still awkward to read.

It’s a bedtime story a little bit reminiscent of Goodnight Moon, but in a softer, more lyrical sort of way.  And instead of saying goodnight to the things in the room, the young boy and his friend are walking around the whole farm/household watching as the world settles into night.  There are only a few words per page, with lots of repetition and rhyme.  The illustrations set a quiet bedtime mood.  It’s sweet.

I’ve read several books in this series, and I keep being disappointed.  They have a really good designer who has created a layout that makes for an attractive book to sit on the shelf, or pick up and flip through.  The covers are shiny.  There are lots of attractive color photos.  I just wish they’d paid more attention to the most effective communication of information.  These are dull and basically read like textbooks — a general overview of all the pertinent information on a very shallow level.  They miss so many opportunities to use the photos in a more effective manner:  when they are describing unusual fruits or animals specific to the country, likely to be completely unfamiliar to students from other parts of the world, photos would have been highly appropriate.

The illustrations are really cute.  The story is okay.  Edgar is a mouse who loves to build things from the food scraps he finds, but his best friend Toby keeps eating his creations, so he heads off to go where he will be appreciated, only to find mice everywhere keep eating his creations.  He heads home dejected, but finds a gift from Toby — his own set of inedible building blocks.  It’s fine, but I’m thinking the solution to the problem seemed a bit obvious.

I’m a fan of this whole series.  They both share the real-time science currently being investigated and studied in different parts of the world (in this case about sea turtles), and also share about the life and work of the scientists themselves.  Illustrated with full-color photographs, they offer readers a chance to be fascinated by creatures they didn’t know were fascinating, and they also inform students about career possibilities in the sciences.  This one does a particularly good job of communicating the dangers faced by the leatherback sea turtles, and efforts being made to help them, while also making clear that there is still much that is still unknown.

I’m a fan of this whole series.  They both share the real-time science currently being investigated and studied in different parts of the world (in this case about octopuses), and also share about the life and work of the scientists themselves.  Illustrated with full-color photographs, they offer readers a chance to be fascinated by creatures they didn’t know were fascinating, and they also inform students about career possibilities in the sciences.