The illustrations are fun and inviting, and the book would make an excellent choice for sharing with a child before a trip to Paris, or as a souvenir from such a trip, as the story describes a dash through the Louvre, and the illustrations show a lot of world-famous artworks that are at home in the famous museum.  Likewise, the scenes outside the museum do a great job of capturing a sense of Parisian sights: the Eiffel Tower, the architecture, the baguettes in a cafe, etc. But aside from that, for general audiences, I’m not sure the story has enough of a plot/climax.  It basically tells about an old woman who turns down an invitation from a friend to visit the Louvre, to which she’s never been despite living in Paris, because they won’t allow her dog; when her dog escapes and races through the museum, she and her friend follow, and when eventually stopped by a guard Madame Martine apologizes, but the guard says they can make an exception because her friend works there.  It’s fine, but a little flat.

On the plus side:  the project uses common, inexpensive items that are easy to come by; the instructions are broken into easy-to-follow sequence; photo illustrations clearly support the written instructions; and key points are clearly labeled with an “Ask for adult help” tag.  Oh, and the binding is sturdy and it’s got all those standard non-fiction text features.  On the negative side:  the child photographed with the project looks about six, which completely fits the obvious target audience for this book & project, yet experience tells me there is no way that the project photographed with the child was actually created by a six-year-old (adult-created artwork being passed off as kid artwork is a pet-peeve of mine); also the hammer and nail used to puncture holes in the plastic caps are not included in the original list of things you need; also $16 for instructions to make one craft doesn’t seem like a lot of bang for your book buck.

A poetic celebration of a blustery day, and a tool for teaching nouns and verbs, too.  The book describes all the ways different things behave on a windy day, told in two-word sentences, always coming back to the many things “we” do on such a day. (e.g. “Twigs drop. Clouds race. Seeds scatter. We chase!”)  The illustrations support the text, providing readers a chance to hunt for where each example is found, and they also extend the text, rounding out the story of who is doing what as the windy day progresses, showing a family sharing a day together, enjoying simple pleasures. Oh, and it would be good for hunting for rhyming pairs and exploring interesting verb choices as well.

The illustrations are really charming, but I wish the story was stronger.  It’s basically about five little mice who are out and about when one disappears and the others look for him, eventually finding him, and then the others disappear.  The fun in the book comes from searching on each page for the little bit of the missing mouse that is peeking out from somewhere.  It’s strictly a choice for the youngest set, PreK or kinders.

I happen to be a big fan of Ralph Waldo Emerson, so I really enjoyed this picture book partial-biography.  I like the end papers covered with quotes from him, and the way more of his quotes are sprinkled throughout the text, describing his joy in building a home of his own and filling it with friends and building his own life to suit his own interests.  I love the theme of overcoming disaster with the help of friends and community.  I wish I could give it a stronger recommendation, but I don’t think the target audience is likely to familiar enough with who Mr. Emerson is to care.  I wish they’d given even a brief introduction at the beginning to tell students about who he was.

It’s fine.  The illustrations are stronger than the story.  The story is about someone who doesn’t fit in with his peers (in this case, an owl who likes poetry — hence the title).  He goes off on his own to enjoy his poetry in secret, but when discovered and teased he runs away, where he finds an audience (of mice) who appreciate his efforts, learning that poetry should be shared, so he doesn’t flee the next time other owls show up, and the more the owls listen, they eventually come to discover they enjoy it too.  It’s fine.  It just seems pretty much like a theme that’s already been done, without anything special to make it stand out.  But the illustrations are cute, and it is a good theme, even if it has been done before.

Wow! Totally cool! I love this book! But then I was not surprised, when I noticed that it’s the same author who created “If the World Were a Village” which is another book that I think is absolutely fabulous.  This book is all about taking really big numbers and illustrating them on a scale that makes them understandable, and those numbers are specific to some big ideas that shape our world and our society (e.g. representing all the wealth in the world as a pile of one hundred coins and the entire population of the world as 100 people to see the distribution; putting 3.5 billion years of life on earth into an hour and listing out when different life forms appear, with modern humans not showing up until 59 mintues and 59.8 seconds have gone by).  It includes a wide range items to draw its comparisons, but they are all things kids can recognize and relate to.  The illustrations support the text and help illustrate the ideas beautifully.  I think every library should have it!

It’s fine for what it is:  an explanation for young children of how burps happen.  The text is limited, the explanation straight-forward, the full-page color photos and illustrations support the text. I just think these non-fiction books for the younger set tend to give too little information to support the cost of the book.

It’s okay, I guess, but I think a lot of kids would feel cheated by the ending:  the author may be trying to make a point, but the kids who can relate to the character’s struggles aren’t going to buy the believability of the ending.  The story opens with the announcement of the upcoming talent show, and goes through all of Penny’s attempts to try to find a talent she can showcase, and her discouragement.  In the end she goes on-stage to blow her kazoo with her dog, and she gets the award for the “Best Friend.”  School talent shows really do raise such anxieties with a lot of kids, but the reader who might be hoping for an idea to come from all Penny’s searching, are going to scoff that they don’t give out awards for such things (even if some of us think they ought to).

The illustrations are fun.  The general story line is good: about a block where the buildup of Christmas lights and holiday decorations keep growing over the years until it’s completely overwhelming, and in the end the lights go out completely, and they all get a chance to appreciate the beauty of the stars above.  But it’s got some issues:  I realize the ability of astronauts to see the Christmas lights from space, and the tripping of the switch spreading the black-out world-wide are exaggerations for effect, but it didn’t really seem necessary; there are these big bold letters declaring that this book comes with a free song, but when you go to the website to download the link, it’s not so much a song as a reading of the story (presumably by the author), with quiet guitar strumming in the background.  Though the online reader did a fine job of reading it smoothly, I found the flow of the text a bit disjointed, with an inconsistent rhyming pattern.

It tells a little-known bit of American history, the story of one baker’s contribution to the American Revolution.  The illustrations are cool, echoing the title by looking like it’s all made of gingerbread.  The things is, gingerbread has little to do with the story, other than stating up front that in his civilian life the baker was known for his gingerbread.  His contribution to the war effort was actually in baking regular bread.

The clean, stylized illustrations offer a good juxtaposition to the squeamish topic:  a mischievous boy who’s bored the businessman’s dinner party his father has insisted he attend decides to add one of his fishing worms to each of the salads, just so he can watch everyone’s reactions. Of course, after the fun of watching everyone else, his father scolds him for taking so long to eat his own salad, so he too is forced to face his own medicine.

A sweet story about Christmas without all the commercialism, and about everyone having something to contribute and about the joys of family time spent together.  When a family is noticing as they decorate their tree that the homemade ornaments are the best, they make a pact that that Christmas they will all make homemade gifts.  The youngest is left in a quandary trying to figure out what he can make.  He keeps brainstorming ideas, but he’s too little to be allowed in the kitchen to cook alone, and it’s the wrong time of year to plant a garden, and the snow bear he makes melts before the big day, and Christmas Eve finds him going to bed sad because he’ll have no gift to offer the next day, but Momma’s comforting words,”the best part of Christmas is spending time together,” finally inspires an idea.  He ends up gathering all the little scraps of paper on which he’d been brainstorming ideas into a decorated jar which he labels, “365 Days of Together To-Dos.”  I think it’s sweet, and it captures the message it’s trying to deliver, and it’s got lots of little details in the illustrations that tie things together into a clean ending.  And I think a lot of kids can relate to feeling like they can’t come up with an idea, plus the book offers so many kid-friendly ideas.

I like what I think it’s trying to be (a grand fanciful adventure set in days gone by), but I think it misses the mark.  The illustrations seem inconsistent in their quality, and rhythm of the poetry is inconsistent in its readability.  These tigers are friends of this rich Victorian dude, and they set off on an adventure, but storms at sea leave them stranded, but after facing a volcano and spending time with some gypsies, they run into their old friend and neighbor in a Paris train station, who welcomes them back into the fold and throws them a feast.  A lot of the whys are left unanswered, leaving the reader a bit in the dark as to the point.  I’m not sure there’s ever an actual climax to the story.  I can’t figure out why they bother republishing it.

The publisher is re-issuing several books originally published in the mid twentieth century.  On the one hand, there’s something sort of charming and sentimental about the vintage illustrations, and it would be nice to have the cleaned up copies, rather than the battered, faded copies that have been sitting on the library shelves for the last 60 years.  On the other hand, I don’t know if the kids will be as charmed as I am.  The story tells of a baby elephant who’s not paying attention when he’s supposed to be holding his mom’s tail in the circus parade, so he follows a farm wagon back to the barn instead.

Well it kinda feels like it falls into the category of a book you just have to have in your library, if only because all the little fans of the other Click Clack books who know there is a Christmas one, are going to want it.  It’s fun.  It’s got the same characters from all the other books, and it opens with Farmer Brown hanging the stockings while listening to sounds outside that send him to bed in anticipation that Santa is near.  All the while, the illustrations are showing the reader that it’s really Duck in a Santa cap playing on the roof that Farmer Brown hears, but when Duck gets himself stuck in the chimney and all the other animals are trying to help, but getting themselves stuck, too, we do see Santa’s sleigh silhouetted in the distance, and sure enough Santa comes to the rescue, because of course he never gets stuck in a chimney.

The illustrations are really charming, but the story is a bit flat.  It tells of a young girl (about age 6 give or take a couple years?) riding the bus by herself for the first time, to go visit grandma.  Who let’s a kid that young ride a bus by themselves?  Now granted, it’s obviously not meant to be taken seriously, as all the other passengers on the bus are animals dressed as people, but still.  The text is mostly just a ramble of the girl’s thoughts, and the story is mostly told through looking at the details of the pictures, and that is mostly just a story of watching the different characters come and go.  At the end of the ride, we see the girl connect with her grandma, proclaiming that she’s got so much to tell.  But really not much happened.

Rhyming text celebrates all the different kinds of boats.  The illustrations are beautiful, and support the text.  Both words and pictures are fairly simple, contributing to its charm.

The question-answer format invites students to ponder their own ideas about where they see numbers in nature.  The illustrations are beautiful.  The examples given of number sets in nature are all things kids can recognize (birds have 2 wings, clovers have three leaves, etc.), and after reaching ten fingers and toes, it asks what comes in numbers too big to count, and suggests the starts.

A fun romp celebrating the power of imagination.  Told in the style of a graphic novel, all the words and dialogue tell the story of a dragon encountering what he thinks is a pirate, but turns out to be a ship’s captain whose ship has been stolen by pirates, and they work together to rescue the ship.  The bright-colored illustrations go back and forth between images of what the boys see in their imaginations, and the prosaic realities of the boy in the dragon suit playing with the boy in the sailor’s hat in the backyard while the moms do laundry.

A good book to have on hand to help students who may be watching their parents go through something similar.  As seen from a young boy’s point of view, it simply tells what it’s like to watch as his father who used to like to go for walks in the big wide colorful world starts to lose interest and says he’s lost his color and spends all day in bed, and throughout the boy keeps worrying that he’s done something wrong, but Dad keeps telling him he didn’t.  Eventually Dad visits people at the hospital who give him medicine for his brain and has someone he can talk to, until gradually the color starts coming back and when the boy fixes him a cup of tea he enjoys it and they return for a walk and a hug and his dad is back.  The book doesn’t pretend it all happened suddenly, but it does provide hope and a sense of empathy for others who might need reassurance.

A sweet story about the benefits of patience and dedication:  a young mouse is disappointed (at first) with his grandfather’s birthday gift of some seeds, but his grandfather assures him that if they plant one and water it every day and wait patiently, soon it will grow into something that will provide both food and a play place.  After planting the seed together, the young mouse rushes out the next day to see what he’s got, only to learn he must be patient. Eventually he is rewarded with a small sprout, which still seems a little disappointing.  One day he runs off with his friends to play, only to return to find his neglected sprout wilting.  He apologizes, and returns to his efforts, and calls upon others for help when he is ill and cannot tend it himself, and in the end he has a beautiful tomato plant that he and his friends all play in while enjoying its fruits.

Ahhhh… There’s something sort of Velveteen Rabbittish about it, in its softness and gentle lesson about what it really means to be alive.  It tells the story of a stone lion outside a library who longs to be real and alive so that he could run in the park and swish his tail.  The wise gargoyle nearby tells him that sometimes stone animals are granted the opportunity to become real for a short time, “if they desire it greatly, with a generous heart.”  As it turns out, when the lion does get his chance to come to life, it is so that he can rescue the homeless girl and her baby brother, who have come to visit him so often, from a terrible snow-storm, by dragging them into the warmth of the library.  Though he never gets the chance to run and frolic, he builds relationships and shared memories that give him a better understanding for those who visit with him, making him feel alive even when he’s stone.

A good book for units on insects, or on habitats, or on animal adaptations/camouflage.  Or just a fun book for kids who like to hunt for the hidden things in a picture, and who like bugs. One two-page spread showing and telling briefly about a particular habitat, with all the bugs kind of hidden, is followed by another two-page spread showing those bugs on a plain back-ground and giving more detailed information about each.  This set-up allows the reader to test their eyesight hunting for what they think they see, and then checking their finds when they turn the page, going back when necessary to find something they may have missed the first time through.

It’s a cute story, with a good message, and one many children can relate to, even if they don’t have a pet elephant.  It tells of a young boy who has a tiny elephant for a pet, and while he shares the joy he takes in his friend, he admits that it means he never fits in because nobody else has a pet elephant.  One day he sets out for Pet Club day, only to find a sign declaring no elephants allowed, and though sad at first, he befriends another sad girl, who was not welcome with her pet skunk, either.  Together they decide to start their own club, and find themselves joined by children with pets like a hedgehog, a swordfish, an armadillo, a penguin, a bat… And at their club, all are welcome.