The fun illustrations are as charming as in the other grandma and grandpa books by this author.  The text follows a day-of-the-week pattern, describing something different each day that Anya cooks with her grandma, and what they do with what they make, each item also representing something one eats at a different time of day.  On Saturday they make a cake, which they save instead of eating right away, because on Sunday Anya’s dad and dog arrive and they have a party.

It’s trying to cover too much information in a too simplified format for that information.  The result is shallow, surface statements, that seem a bit disjointed and unorganized. It’s bound to leave young readers with more unanswered questions that any real clear understanding.  I’d rather find a book targeting slightly older students — I think it would do it’s topic more justice if it had more words to work with.

I don’t like it when books make statements as fact that are really over-simplified generalizations.  In describing parts of a day, this one says, “In the afternoon the bus takes you home from school.” Yet not all kids ride busses.  It says, “Aftern dinner the sun sets and night falls.” Yet around here in the winter, that would likely happen before dinner.  It says, “One day rain falls. The next day the sun shines.” Yet rain could stick around for weeks on end or only last for half an hour.  It says, “Celebrations last a day.”  Yet some celebrations last a week or a month.  It says, “You celebrate your birthday.” Yet not all families do.

The simple text has lots of rhyme, rhythm, and repetition to help emergent readers, and the illustrations add meaning to the text, to share with young dinosaur fans the processes involved in digging them up, jigsawing them to make sense, and rigging them together so that museum visitor can “dig” them on display. A page in the back offers further explanatory paragraphs to explain the simple text in the body of the book.

The illustrations are cute, and it’s great that when Chick get’s fired from the egg factory for not conforming to the plain-white-oval requirements, she continues with her passion of creating uniquely shaped and painted eggs, gets discovered and becomes famous for her artwork.  But the last page, when she declares her best creations, the prettiest things she ever made, are her babies, could either be taken as a sentimental declaration for mothers to share with their children, so they know how precious they are, or it could be taken as a regression to the pre-feminism era, teaching young girls that the most important thing they can do in life is to bear children.

The illustrations are nice, the simple counting text rhymes, and I would probably recommend it for Australian audiences, whose young children would appreciate having a counting book that featured familiar images.  But the images and vocabulary are “absolutely Australian,” as the cover states.  It would’ve been more useful as a cross-cultural tool for American children if there were explanatory sentences or paragraphs to provide context/definitions.

The stated mission of the group publishing this series of books is to preserve our heritage of children’s folksongs.  If you share this mission, this may be a worthy addition to your library, but as a stand-alone picture book, it doesn’t hold up as well as some of the others in the series.  On the back of the book they spin it as a “great American nonsense song with a real tongue-twister for the chorus,” but really that means it’s hard to read aloud, many of the non-sense words leaving the reader unsure how to pronounce them, and the story seems to be that of a man who married a wife who’s a slob.  The illustrations do their best to try to make sense of the nonsense (with mice mirroring humans), but it seems a case of doing the best one can with what one has to work with.  The music is in the back, and maybe if I could read music the tune would’ve helped, but as is, it was an awkward read.

It might get recommended for libraries in New York, but kids who are unfamiliar with New York landmarks are going to miss a lot of the references in this book.  The illustrations are fun, and the story is cute:  it tells of a taxi driver who picks up a funny-dressed passenger who asks to be taken to Schmeeker Street, on the other side of town.  At a dead-end, the passenger pulls out a remote control that opens the entrance to the Finkon Tunnel, and leads to the other side of town (a very pink a green kind of place), where they root for the Spankees baseball team, have to drive around spotholes, etc. After dropping off his passenger, the cabbie makes his way home by way of the Snooklyn Bridge, and is much relieved when he finds himself back in Times Square, but when he gets home his family are all dressed in pink and green, and his wife is serving tweet loaf and bravy for dinner.

A fun read-together for kids and dads to share, it points out all the ways kids are lucky if there dad is the kind who never grew up.  The silly illustrations accompany a long list of indicators of dads who have never grown up, from racing grocery carts to reading comics and making pancakes in shapes.

Well, when it comes down to it, this is the story of a not-too-bright man doing a strip-tease at the train station, in an effort to find the ticket that he’s got in his mouth. When he gets down to his underwear without finding the ticket, he yells out about losing it, and then finds it on the ground since it fell out of his mouth while yelling.  He puts it back in his mouth so that he has his hands free to dress again, and when he gets on the train he laughs at his own silliness, thereby swallowing the ticket.  Lucky for him, he has cash to buy a new one on board because folks standing by while he stripped had thrown money into his hat. The illustrations are cleverly drawn, but colored in such drab, dreary colors, they’re not as appealing as they might have been.

It’s rather pedantic and cheesy.  It tells of a selfish, whiney, demanding little bear who has created a long list of all the things he wants from Santa, insisting that if he can’t have them all it won’t be a happy Christmas.  When Christmas arrives, his cousins do too, and they get most of the things on Little Bear’s wish list, but all he gets is a folded piece of paper that he refuses to even open.  He sulks for a while, then decides to help each of his cousins with their toys, until his father reminds him that he forgot about his note, which directs him to look under the stairs, where he finds the last item of his wish list, a tricycle, which he decides to share with his cousins.

The illustrations for this book are bright and interesting and unusual and intriguing.  I just wish the story lived up to the artwork.  There’s not really a plot.  It basically tells about someone who loves magic so much they imagine all sorts of magic they can do, each of which is a function of nature (make the sun rise, the rain fall, flowers bloom, etc.).

Though a picture book, this title is really better for older students.  The bright, somewhat abstract paintings that illustrate it are beautiful, and draw one in to this biography of jazz musician John Coltrain.  It describes how his music was influenced by life experiences, which included poverty, race issues, family issues, drug use, and spirituality.  It’s a compelling story, well-told and inspiring, but a bit too dark for young readers.

The illustrations are absolutely charming!  Hugo is a small yellow bird, living in Paris, who doesn’t like to fly.  One day he meets a new friend who wants to take him to the Eiffel Tower, but Hugo keeps making excuses to put off the adventure.  Finally that evening he confesses to a local owl that he is afraid of flying.  The owl is both understanding and helpful.  After practicing all night, Hugo is finally ready to take the leap the next day when his friend returns, and thoroughly enjoys the adventure.

The illustrations are soft and charming.  The text is rhythmic and rhyming and repetitive.  The story tells the simple tale of a young owl who watches his older siblings fly away and leave the nest, but is afraid to attempt to fly herself.  When she finally does, she’s glad because she then sets up her own nest, and hatches her own chick.  My one criticism is that there’s no actual compelling reason that finally spurs the chick to try flying: after repeatedly refusing the attempt she just finally does.

This is the second picture-book biography of Alice Coachman I’ve read in the last year, and though very different, they’re both fabulous in their own way.  This one has the advantage of offering the reader more detailed information about this inspiring woman who beat all kinds of odds to become the first African-American woman to win Olympic gold in 1948, from the poverty in which she was raised, to the societal prejudices against both blacks and women, to the cancellation of the 1944 Olympics during WWII.  When she finally did get her chance, it was an amazingly close contest.

Eh.  It’s fine.  It’s a cutesy little story about a personified bear, whose mother has warned him to stay away from people, who starts worrying when he hears about the tooth fairy because he doesn’t know whether the tooth fairy is a bear or a person.  He consults many other personified animal friends, getting into discussions about the Easter Bunny, Santa, and Old Mother Hubbard along the way.  For this bear, Santa and the tooth fairy both turn out to be bears.  Will young human children find their own beliefs about these characters challenged?

Beautifully illustrated non-fiction, describing the startlingly long migration of the godwits from Alaska to New Zealand.  It chronicles a single godwit, from hatching in June, to fattening itself up and learning to fly, through taking off with her flock in mid-October, struggles with weather avoiding birds of prey, to her arrival in New Zealand eight days and 7,270 non-stop miles later.  The story really is a compelling one to add to a science unit on migration and/or birds, and the illustrations really are stunning.  My one criticism of the book is the way it continually referred the bird it was tracking as “the young female.”  I found it repetitive and a little annoying (the feminist in me kept asking what difference it made that the bird was female — do males not make this journey?).

The action and violence and battle scenes in this series tend to mark it for a male audience, but the characters and plots are well enough developed that I and some other female friends have enjoyed it also.  Given the violence, these books may be most fitting for middle school and high school audiences, but a good friend who is also an elementary librarian says she’s got a lot of fifth grade boys who love the series,   so I’ve added the complete collection to my shelves as well, but I only market it to fifth graders.  This, the eighth book in the series, takes place when Will has ceased to be an apprentice, and is a Ranger in his own right, but he’s teamed up with his former mentor and warrior friend to form an emergency squad sent to squash the growth of a cult who is taking over a neighboring country, stealing people blind and gradually over-taking the established authorities.

This is the second book by this author/illustrator that I’ve read (the other being Dancing with Grandma), and I’ve loved them both.  The illustrations are utterly charming, and the stories are whimsical and fanciful, even while they are very relatable (and I like that the grandparents are spunky).  This one tells of a young boy spending the day with his grandfather, and all the adventures they get up to (at least in their imaginations) with the things they find laying around Grandpa’s    shed and yard, from tree house and tire swinging to building a race car, rocket, and sailboat, and battling dragons in the bargain.

It’s fine.  I suppose it’s a good idea for all library collections to include a story about the kid who doesn’t want to have a babysitter, and this would work, but I’m not sure you can’t find better out there.  It’s a pretty basic story:  Tiny Troll is watching his mother get ready to go out for the evening, protesting that he doesn’t want a sitter, kindly older sitter comes, Mom goes, Tiny Troll throws tantrum, calm and nurturing sitter wins him over with mudmilk (monster equivalent to cocoa?) and a story, Tiny Troll falls asleep, and Mom returns safely.   The only thing that makes it particularly unique is the monster twist.

This fictional story set in France in the late 1800s describes an encounter between a young girl and artist Camille Claudel.  When Mademoiselle Claudel comes to stay for a time at the home of the girl’s grandmother, the famous sculptor helps the young girl look at the world and develop her own artistic skills while using the girl as a model for her own work.  A blurb in the back of the book shares the historical facts which inspired the story.  The soft illustrations suit the story and the setting.  A glossary in the front of the book (including pronunciation guide) introduces young readers to the French words sprinkled throughout the story.

A beautiful book, in illustrations and in sentiment, for young children.  With just 2 to three lines per page, told in rhyme, it works through a variety of animals, showing parents nestled with their young in a variety of animal homes, always keeping their young “safe and sound.”  It’s sappy, but in a good way.

In this poem, a young boy walks us through his day, sharing how his feelings shift as different things happen, each time comparing his mood to a color.  A good pairing to go with Dr. Seuss’s My Many Colored Days.  Also a good tool for helping children talk about their feelings, or for teaching about the figurative language of poetry.

Beautifully illustrated non-fiction, addressing the question as to what happens to insects in the winter, when we don’t notice them around anymore.  Each two-page spread takes on another insect, using the approach of, “If you were a…” to offer a few sentences about what that insect does to survive the cold of winter.  In the back of the book, a section on “More about the Insects in this book” offers further details, with a paragraph on each.  On the one hand, I wish those extra paragraphs had been offered directly on the pages for each insect, but perhaps that would have detracted from the artwork, which really is one of the assets of this book.