The story is about a young Irish girl discovering a mummy buried in a peat bog.  Told from the young girl’s perspective, it recounts the events from discovery through placement of the mummy in the museum.  Throughout, the young girl who made the discovery is caught up in wondering about the young girl who was buried perhaps 1000 years before.  When she goes to see the museum exhibit, she raises the question of whether the dead girl misses her cozy resting place, and minds being put on display.  Normally I’m a big Eve Bunting fan, but this one didn’t capture me as much as I hoped.  There really wasn’t enough to the tale to make me care about the characters.  I don’t think most of my students will be impressed, but still I’m glad to own it, as part of the Eve Bunting collection.

Kids love how-to drawing books, but often they are too complicated for young artists to really achieve success.  The cute cartoon-like versions of the creatures in this book will be appealing to students, and they are broken down into simple-enough step-by-step procedures that young artists will be able to create reasonable facsimiles of their own without much trouble.  The final two-page spread shows all the creatures from the book gathered together in a single tableau.  I’d like to get the rest of the books in this series, as well, as I am sure they’ll be quite popular.

This fabulous bit of historical fiction, set in the era of reconstruction after the Civil War, is told from the perspective of a young girl, whose family is getting their first taste of freedom.  When news comes through that permission has been granted for all former slave couples to officially register their marriages in the eyes of the law, Ellen’s parents reminisce about their “broom wedding,” the only type of wedding that had been allowed under slavery.  The day the family goes together to the court house, Ellen brings along the family broom, and decorates it with flowers from the roadside as a wedding bouquet for her mother.  The cut-block illustrations are stunning, capturing both the time period and the mood of the story.

Bright, cheerful, fun illustrations and rhyming text tell the story of Zog and his classmates at dragon school.  Poor Zog is ever so very enthusiastic and well-meaning, but he struggles with each lesson, but after each failure he is comforted by a young girl who tends his bumps and buises.  When it comes time for the final lesson, how to capture a princess, the young girl reveals herself as Princes Pearl, and offers herself to be captures, so Zog finally gets his gold star.  Princess Pearl stays to tend the other dragons, too, until a knight shows up to rescue her; when she declares herself uninterested in being rescued, she and the knight team up as a flying medical crew, with Zog as their transport.  Presumably, they all live happily ever after.  Sure to be a hit.

I have a young niece who loves painting nails, and I’ve had the experience with other nail art books of having her want a design that is so complicated that I don’t even feel up to attempting it, let alone her being able to do it on her own.  The main thing I like about this book is that it really does seem geared to its target audience:  the designs are fun and showy, but (mostly) of very simple composition, with lots of close-up step-by-step photography, giving the impression that a young artist might actually be successful.  The text is simple and straight-forward and offers practical helpful hints.

This picture book graphic story is set on the streets of New York in the early 1900s.  A small shoe-shine boy is not having much business luck among the bustling crowds, when a bit of red falls from laundry lines strung between the buildings.  The young boys climbs crates and drain pipes and fires escapes as he scampers from balcony to balcony in search of the owner.  At each balcony he meets another of his neighbors, each from a different corner of the world, and each offering another suggestion as to who the bit of red may belong to.  The illustrations are fun, and kids will be drawn to the graphic format, but they may be disappointed it doesn’t have a more exciting plot.

A collection of short Christmas stories, including bible stories, stories describing the origins of holiday traditions from around the world, and assorted legends and others, the focus of the book is definitely on the religious aspects of the holiday.  Each story is 2-3 pages, and the author’s background as a story-teller comes through in the fluency and voice with which the stories are infused, intending them to be read aloud.  The illustrations are soft and inviting, and an appendix in the back offers readers specific ideas for each story to turn  it into an interactive experience if being shared with a large group.  A great tool for families wishing to share holiday traditions.

Beautiful illustrations accompany this tale of an old winter wind who is tired and looking for a place to rest.  Unfortunately, everywhere it tries to stop, someone shoos him along for fear of the damage he will do.  Every time he gets sent packing, his anger and frustration builds until he is quite the raging storm.  At the peak of the storm, a young girl takes pity on him and offers the wind refuge under her house.  His anger gone, the wind is able to rest until spring, when he awakes and flies away, leaving behind magical snow that never melts, keeping the kind girl and her family cool throughout the hottest summers.  An afterward shares what the author knows about the story’s origins, which may or may not be a Jewish folktale.

In this latest adventure of Elmer, the patchwork elephant, Elmer helps the little guys stand up to a bully.  All the animals of the jungle are noticing the quiet when the usual songbirds refuse to sing as they hide from the big bird who’s being a bully.  When the big bird refuses to listen to reason, Elmer comes up with a plan that brings everyone together to scare away the bully.  It’s bright colors and familiar character will be engaging to young students, and it’s message of sticking together to stand up to bullies is needed.

Charming water-color illustrations set the stage for this picture-book biography of Sarah Hale, the woman credited with convincing Abraham Lincoln to make Thanksgiving a national holiday.  Though it doesn’t have the same voice and drama of “Thank You, Sarah,” it’s got more concrete information, filling in gaps where the other story skims over some details.  Together they make a good pairing to share this little known bit of history.

The illustrations are charming.  I’m not sure the story is as charming.  Times are hard in the village when a young girl finds a chicken which seems to have fallen off a truck.  Markings on a broken crate indicate that the chicken belongs to someone named Izzy Pippik.  The girl gets permission to keep the chicken until she can locate its rightful owner.  She protects both the hen and her eggs from those who would want to eat them, insisting that they must be cared for until their owner is found.  Soon there is a flock over-running the village, and bringing in strangers curious to see the spectacle, until business is booming again.  By the time Izzy Pippik finds his way back to the village, he decides to give them to the village.  It’s not a bad story; I’m just not sure kids are going to care.

Ewe! Ick! I’ve heard of anglerfish before, and I know that down in the depths of the ocean where there is no light creatures have not evolved with physical beauty in mind, but yuck!  The color photos that fill this book bring to life in all their ugly detail creatures most of us will never personally encounter in our lives.  The text is packed with clear and understandable information about many species of fish that live in the depths of the ocean, including why they have adapted the way they have to their environment, how we study them, and some of the dangers they face.

Obviously trying to target reluctant readers with high-interest topics, this series seems to be more about marketing the substance.  This is the third one in the series that I have reviewed, and like the others, there’s much attention given to dramatic images and fonts, and just a little, relatively shallow, information (okay, I did learn that the legend of the Loch Ness monster has only been circulating since the 1960s, and that oarfish can be 50 feet long).  I guess it’s not bad for what it’s trying to be, but I think there’s better available.

Fans of Egan’s picture book, The Pink Refrigerator, will be able to follow the further adventures of Dodsworth in this series as he sets off to explore the world.  This is one of those bridging books for young readers that claims to be a chapter book (4 short chapters), but would be just as much at home among the Everybody Books, as there are full color illustrations on every page, with limited text.  As Dodsworth sets off to explore the city of Rome, the reader is exposed to a variety of world-famous landmarks, and his traveling companion the duck adds a bit of comic relief through his constant misunderstandings and near mishaps.  When Dodsworth loses his luggage and the pair have no money, the duck comes to the rescue by “finding” funds in the Trevi Fountain.  It’s a cute story, with a bit of humor, and it just might spark some students’ interest in seeing some of these places for themselves someday.

I’ve read several in this series now, and I really like them.  I think they are great tools for creating a bridge for comic book fans to stretch themselves into chapter books.  They are beginning chapter books, with large fonts, short chapters, and a few full-page color illustrations that still have a comic book feel to them.  Not just the illustrations capture the classic comics, but so do the plot lines and writing style.  This one tells of Superman rescuing Metropolis from the evil Brainiac who has developed the technology to travel the universe, shrinking whole cities and capturing them under glass for his collection.  It’s easy enough to be accessible to struggling readers without dumbing down the story.  The plot and style and characters will allow it to appeal both to young readers, and to older struggling readers.  Discussion questions and writing prompts in the back add to the usefulness of these books as teaching tools, but students will be drawn to them for recreational reading as well.

It’s kind of a flat little story:  the characters are just sort of there, without any real personality to them, and the plot is kind of bland.  It’s a beginning chapter book with large font and lots of black and white illustrations, which tells the story of a group of young vampires who go on a field trip to the county fair, and happen to overhear a gang of theives who’ve been robbing schools discussing their scheme, so they scare them into confessing to the police.  It doesn’t really feel like a real story kids would read for fun, but like something that would be used in a reading class.

This autobiography of Caldecott winning author/illustrator Allen Say traces his life from a sheltered childhood along seashore of Japan, when his mother introduced him to books and drawing early in order to keep him safely at home, through the disruptions brought upon his family during WWII, his estrangement from his father, his efforts to pursue his artistic education, his relationships with his Sensei and fellow student, his early career, and his decision to come to America.  He had to take on a great deal of independence at a very young age, and he tells his story very honestly.  It is illustrated with photographs and his own illustrations, which demonstrate the breadth of his skill in a variety of styles.

I blame the poor quality of this book on the editors’ failures.  There are some good poems in the mix, but the over-all volume is a flop.  The author’s running metacognitive commentary on her poems is often arrogant and patronizing, and always distracting.  That sort of thing should be saved for and English textbook in the poetry unit.  The illustrations do nothing to enhance the reader’s experience of the poems, and the good poems are tucked in among a bunch of less-than-fabulous ones.  This same review applies to two books I’ve read by the same author-illustrator pair.

Bound to be a topic of high interest.  This slim volume contains a lot of information about a variety of spying technologies, the purposes for which they were developed, and the historical/political contexts in which they’ve been used.  The main critique I have of the book has to do with its organization — the publisher’s efforts to jazz things up with cool graphics have led to a layout that includes random side-bar paragraphs stuck in where they interrupt the flow of other information.

Not a lot of text. Not a complex story. But ever-so-very relatable, and stunning water-color illustrations that celebrate the impromptu decision of Grandma and Granddaughter to drop everything and go dancing through the house, dressed up in scarves and crowns, with the pets joining in the fun, until they all collapse.  Grandma’s got some moves — I’m not that limber and I’m a good twenty years younger, but heck, in imaginations we all can be as graceful and Ginger Rogers.

This is a beautiful and inspiring book. Free verse poetry tells the biography of Alice Coachman, the first African American woman to win an Olympic gold medal.  Beginning in Alice’s childhood in the 1930s, it tells of her active nature, the first time she saw a high jumper, her desire to try, and the roadblocks set her way, and how she built her own practice crossbar by tying rags to sticks.  Her self-taught high-jumping skills opened her chance to study at Tuskegee Institute High School and won her a national championship. By 1948 she was setting Olympic records.  The beautiful illustrations throughout the book really enhance the telling of this inspirational tale, and black and white photos in the back contribute with additional information for the curious reader, making Alice real to the student has trouble with the “is this a true story?” concept.

Here we have yet another new baby book.  Penny spends most of the book listing all the pink things she loves.  She is horrified when she is called to come meet her new baby brother because boys are blue, but then when the blue blanket is unwrapped and Penny sees his red hair and rosey pink skin she decides maybe she loves him after all.

The good things about this book are that it uses supplies that really are easily on hand for most kids, and both the directions and explanation are very clearly given and easy to understand.  The problem with this book is that it actually takes all the real opportunities to think away from the child.  It asks readers what they observe, and what they think, but the answers for what they will see and why are already so clearly explained that they don’t actually even need to conduct the experiments.