A beautifully-illustrated non-fiction book!  It is packed with information, describing in detail different kinds of volcanic eruptions: creative and destructive.  The layout makes it suitable for a wide range of students, because it allows for a more surface introduction of the material if one reads only the larger print, but most pages also offer  smaller-print paragraphs providing more in-depth information for older or more interested readers.  I learned a few new things myself.

On the one hand, the whole gross gimmick has been so trendy lately that it’s getting a bit old, but on the other hand, it does hold a certain appeal to its target audience, and it’s certainly applicable as a window to look at history.  I like the way this book focuses on the everyday experiences of people long ago, serving to paint a picture of the times which students need to develop if they are going to have the necessary context for reading/pondering history or historical fiction.  It’s interesting enough that I don’t want to give it a Not Recommended rating, but I don’t feel like I can quite recommend it, on account of some doubtful bits of information:  I find it hard to accept without question its assertion that “There are no such insects on the other side of the Atlantic” when referring to mosquitoes, given that malaria in Europe is documented back to at least the middle ages; though corsets may have been worn by both sexes, and primarily for purposes of encouraging good posture, as this book declares, you can’t tell me that some of those women weren’t also concerned with keeping their jiggly parts from jiggling; and if the whole focus of your book is the ick factor, and you’ve got pages dedicated to dealing with bodily wastes, without a single mention of women’s menstrual hygiene issues, you’re being omitting some pretty significant ick.

Okay, so I am definitely not the target audience for this book, but I know I have several boys who will think it’s great, and even as a non-interested reader, I can appreciate that it was well-organized, and offers a broad look at its sport.  It begins by describing the history of how Mixed Martial Arts got started (a chapter I even found interesting), and then goes on to describe the moves, famous participants, and famous fights, before concluding with speculation about the future of the sport.  I liked that it included information about women fighters and was honest about the dangers inherent in the sport, but I worry that it’s likely to become fairly quickly dated, as more famous people/matches eclipse the famous people/matches of the past — but then, that’s a danger with all books of this sort.

The story of a young kangaroo being put to bed provides the setting for sharing a series of original songs to the tunes of popular lullabies.  At the top of the page for each song it tells the reader what tune to use (e.g. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or Rock-a-Bye Baby), but the words are new, with illustrations set to match.  It would be fun to share with students and see if they could identify the tune, and maybe even inspire them to write their own original re-writes.

The true story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral, well-told, given sentiment by focusing on the simplicity of the cart that carried his body.  It will be a nice addition to a robust collection that wishes to round out its coverage of MLK.  For smaller collections, or for young readers first learning about King, they’ll need to start with a book that gives more concrete information about his accomplishments, or they won’t care about his funeral, but for those who already have a grounding on who the man was, this book provides an additional chapter to the story that has not been told before.

It’s okay.  The illustrations are humorous, as is the premise of the story:  a young boy has spent the day with his aunt, and can’t understand why she seems so distressed when he’s been trying to be so helpful.  The text basically consists of a list of one attempt to help, which turned to disaster, after another, described in rhyme.  I kind of wish the fluency of the text rolled a little easier off the tongue — a bit stilted at times.

It’s okay, I guess.  It’s a book about moving and saying good-bye.  To try to cheer themselves up, some friends who are facing one of them moving away decide to throw a good-pie party instead, for the whole neighborhood, and after the party they gaze at the moon, referring to it as a pie they will always be able to share.  There doesn’t seem to be any real climax that it builds to, or any surprise or humor or compelling reason to make the reader care.  A little on the bland side.

The illustrations are soft and brown-toned, lending a sentimentality to the book.  The facial expressions of the characters capture a sense of wonder.  The story is a simple one: it begins as a Max shares a good-bye moment with his grandfather, who assures him the moon will always shine for him.  Throughout the long car ride home, Max keeps his eyes on the moon waiting for it to disappear from sight like his grandfather did, but instead it follows him home, disappearing from view only briefly, once as they travel through a tunnel, and once when a cloud temporarily covers it.  Although kids who live around here may experience more often that the clouds could cover the moon for days (or weeks) at a time, they’ll still enjoy the reassuring concept of the ever-returning moon.

Two bear cubs, upon finding their campground deserted, decide to go exploring.  They come across a school and wander in to investigate.  Though it is completely beyond believability to think two bears are going to be able to wander from room to room throughout the school before anyone notices, these two manage to visit the music room, art room, gym, science room and cafeteria before being discovered, creating all sorts of mischief along the way.  Upon discovery the fire alarm is pulled, emergency folks arrive and calmly cart the bears home in the back of a squad car, so all ends well.  The illustrations are cute and idealized, and kids will enjoy imagining what it would be like if bears visited school.  Plus the book would make a good read-aloud for September Kindergartners as a spark to start discussion about different parts of the school.

Eh.  It’s another take on bedtime monsters, as the title indicates.  In this one we see a little boy playing monster before bed, and then wanting to sleep with his parents for fear of the monsters that may materialize.  Mom has little sympathy, and sure enough, a series of monsters present themselves, each declaring that they are afraid of some other monster (which is sure to be the next one to arrive), and crawling into bed with Arnold, until it is quite crowded.  The last monster says he’s scared of Arnolds, and so when Arnold declares his identity all the monsters scurry off to their corners and Arnold has his bed back to himself.  The most interesting page is at the end, when the illustration shows all the monsters lurking in the parts of the room where we can see what real items in the room inspired their births in Arnold’s imagination.  All around, it’s okay, but I wasn’t particularly wowed.

The illustrations are fabulous — they’re silly and fun, and they do a great job of evoking the joys and absurdities of family reunions, which is essentially what this story is about.  The text itself, though, doesn’t really live up to the illustrations.  It’s trying to be a poem, but it doesn’t have good rhythm/flow for reading aloud fluently, and it’s not really clear about the point of it all.

As a general rule, I’m not a fan of pedantic stories that are purposely written to teach some moral.  I think they’re kinda patronizing to kids.  That being said, this story is not bad for that kind of thing.  It tells of a little pig who always wants to be first, until he races to be first to respond to a call, “Who would care for a sandwich?”  It turns out to be a sand witch who needs caring for, and who holds him to his word until he learns his lesson.  It would be better simply by removing the banner across the front cover that proclaims it “A Story About Learning to Take Turns.”  Why couldn’t they let kids think it through themselves as to what the story is about?

Following a similar pattern as Cheer Up, Mouse, this one tells the story of Mouse’s trouble getting to sleep, and all his forest friends trying to help.  Each animals makes a suggestion based on their own personal preferences (Frog suggests a bath, Rabbit suggests some exercise to wear him out…), but nothing seems to work, until in the end it turns out he just needs a lullaby reminding him that he is surrounded by loved ones. It’s a sweet, comforting story for young readers, with a problem they can all relate to at some time or another.

I was disappointed.  The illustrations are cute, and the characters are familiar, and the story fine (as the babysitter takes out the five little monkeys to go trick-or-treating, she’s keeping track of them by their costumes, but they keep trading costumes with other critters), but there was no rhyme or rhythm or repetition or counting which characterize the other Five Little Monkey books I’ve read.

The text is clear and simple for young readers, with just a few sentences per page, well-translated, with all text presented in both English and Spanish.  It is illustrated with full-page color photos that support the text.  It begins with a description of the different food groups, and an encouragement to try to eat snacks that draw from at least two of those groups, and then it goes on to basically a list suggestions of healthy snacks.

A sweet story about doing things your own way.  When Bear finds he has out-grown his little boat, he gives it away and sets to building himself a new one.  He tells his mother he knows just what he wants, builds it himself, and tells the boat when he is finished, “You are just what I dreamed you would be.”  But as he gets ready to put it in the water, several other animals come by telling him what his boat needs, and he takes all their suggestions, until he is completely disgusted with how it turned out.  Not wanting to hurt his friends’ feelings, he assured them that he knew they were trying to help and that he appreciated their good intentions but, “A bear should never let go of his own dream.”  The illustrations are cute, and support the text, and the animals faces give them personality.

It basically tells the life story of a blanket & bear, from the time they were given to a newborn, to how he took them with him everywhere until they got left behind one day; on their journey to try to find him again they visit an island of retired blankets and bears enjoying their free time, and they are invited to stay, but they continue their search for the young boy who needs them; eventually they find him, only to discover that he is all grown up and no longer needs them, so they return the the island to retire in leisure.  The story is told in rhyme, and the illustrations are soft and sentimental (but the eyes on the people are a little creepy).  There’s just not any kind of climax or compelling hook to make us care about the blanket and bear.  It’s okay, but not exceptional.

The pair that created the fabulous A Leaf Can Be… have teamed up and done it again.  This simple, poetical book helps readers consider water in all its many forms and capacities.  Most pages contain only a couple words, with opposite pages sharing rhyming pairs describing water in different forms: “garden soaker” (rain) opposite “valley cloaker” (fog).  The illustrations are beautiful and whimsical and support the text, so that readers must often consult the illustration to make meaning from the text. In the back of the book more detailed text offers explanations for each of the names given to water throughout the book, and a glossary and suggestions for further reading are also included.  It really is a delightful book!

This book is beautiful!  If your library was only going to have one version of Beauty and the Beast, I would recommend this one.  The re-telling stays true to the most traditional versions of the story, and is perhaps too long for the youngest audiences, but it is the amazing illustrations that make this such a fabulous choice:  they mix the use of silhouette and color to stunning effect, and include enough delicate detail to evoke the era/locale of the story.  Highly, highly recommended!!

It’s a cute little story, following your basic story line of pampered princess who wants to know what peasant life is like, combined with the ever-popular princess-who-is-going-to-be-forced-to-marry-someone-she-doesn’t-like.  What makes this one different is the silly extremity of the characters that makes it rather cartoon-like:  the potential suitors consist of a man so ugly his servants are charged with making sure he never sees a reflective surface, a man so vain he must always have a mirror within sight, and conjoined twins who love potty humor and fighting.  It wasn’t what I was expecting from Lois Lowry — I was hoping for something with characters of more depth.

Nothing about it is really grabbing me, but I guess I don’t really have any strong objections either, so it lands in the fuzzy “additional purchase” category.  It’s a series of very short poems (most of which follow pretty much the same five-short-line format) that together trace through the course of a day from getting up and getting dressed to playing at the park, eating dinner, and going to bed.  My only actual gripe is with the color-scheme of the illustrations that seems to be part of a trend I’ve been noticing lately in too many picture books: using colors that are rather soft and dull and kinda drab.

Horses continuously provide a certain lure to certain readers.  Wild horses have a special allure all their own.  The beautiful color photos that illustrate this book will hook the readers, and the text will inform them and make them think.  As it traces the story (across several decades) of the research that has gone into developing a medicine to control the population growth of wild horses with minimal intrusion, and why such measures are necessary, it also teaches about the history of wild horses, their genetics, and their lifestyle (although somehow that doesn’t seem like the appropriate word to apply to a community of animals, but I like how all-encompasing it is).  It is well-written and packed with science in a real-world context.

The illustrations are cute, but the story is lame.  It’s basically about a chameleon who’s all excited to see a sign declaring him “King of the Zoo,” until he tours the zoo, seeing the same sign on all the animals and throwing a temper tantrum over not being the best, until he’s all happy again when one little visitor declares him to be her favorite.  We never have an explanation for what the purpose is of the signs, and the chameleon never learns that it’s not a competition.  There doesn’t seem to be a point other than to provide an excuse to draw a cute chameleon shifting shapes/colors.

It’s a fun little story about being proud of your differences.  Crispin is a young dragon who is at first horrified on his seventh birthday, when he’s supposed to start breathing  fire, to find that he breathes other stuff instead.  First his dad tries taking him to the doctor or school to solve the problem, then Crispin runs away to try to escape the problem, and then he befriends a young knight who tries to help him solve the problem, but in the end everyone realizes that being different isn’t necessarily a problem after all.  It helps that every time Crispin tries to breathe fire, whatever comes out instead happens to be whatever is most useful at that moment.  Dragons are always a hit, and this one is cute and conveying a good message.

I like the style of the artwork:  the colors are rich, the monsters are silly — they’re eye-catching.  I’m not sure if it’s a failing in the artwork or in the storyline, or in the connection between the two, but somewhere there is a lack.  This is a nearly wordless story (tag, you’re, & it are the only words), and as such it is dependent upon the strength of the pictures to tell the story.  Maybe it’s a matter of the story being too complicated to be well told in this format, but all the way through you’re never really sure what’s going on, or what the point is — it leaves too many questions unanswered in my opinion, but then maybe it’s going for that — leaving it to the reader’s interpretation?