This simple, kid-friendly guide to staging a dramatic performance, begins with basic information, outlining and defining different elements that help bring dramatics to life, such as backdrops, props, and set pieces.  It offers suggestions for finding, buying, or making what you need. It provides a complete list of the tools and materials needed for the projects in the book, and then it provides step-by-step directions with ideas for spin-off variations.  Lots of reminders about safety and supervision are included.  The projects included are ones with which the target audience should be able to find success.  Index, glossary, and table of contents are included.

Fun, cheerful, bright illustrations brighten this book that has a lot of potential but doesn’t quite hit the target.  It attempts to use the rhythm of the familiar song, “Who stole the cookie form the cookie jar,” to address all the basic question words: who, what, when, where, why, and how.  Unfortunately, the rhythm is a bit off, making it hard to read smoothly.  The storyline tying the song together is a bit vague and kind of gets lost in the singing.

A rather odd little story, it’s got a nice font.  Quirky, cartoonish illustrations accompany this story telling of a very active boy whom people are always warning that’s he’s sure to crack his head and scramble his brain.   One day he does crack his head and his brain runs away.  The story continues, telling of community efforts to catch the brain, until Bobby and his brain both realize that they work best together.

Rhyming, Rhythmical text, accompanied by cheerful watercolor illustrations tell the story of a lonely duck whose familiar lake has been deserted since a hurricane.  A kazoo is his only companion.  When he heads south to find a new lake, the kazoo serves to help him make friends with the locals, who eventually accompany him back home.  It’s a sweet story.

This colorful picture book uses the biblical story of Noah’s Ark as the setting for a tale declaring how it came to be that each animal has it’s own familiar sound.  Bright paintings depict the time before the ark, with elephants quacking, pigs howling, etc.  Noah keeps having to bark at them for quiet to cut through the confusion.  Once on the ark, in the interest of maintaining order, each animal is assigned the noise we associate with them today.

This might rate a “recommended” if you’ve got a significant Jewish population among your patrons.  It tells the story of a remarkably well-travelled kippah and very briefly touches upon several Jewish holidays and the traditions there of as the kippah travels the globe.  Each holiday it manages to get misplaced at the festivities, finding its way into the suitcase of someone who was just visiting and really lives half a world away.  A map in the back traces the travel route, and a glossary of Jewish holidays and traditions is also included, but there’s not really enough explanation for non-Jewish readers to learn much.  The targeted audience is limited to those children who would already be familiar with the customs included.

Cute, cartoon-like illustrations accompany this story of two chameleon friends battling through what to do when both catch the same bug at the same time, and neither wants to let it go.  Predictably, they get so caught up in fighting with each other that the bug escapes, and neither one gets to eat it.  It’s a cute version of a lesson that kids need to hear, but it’s been done before, so you probably already have something that would serve the same purpose.  If you’re looking for something new to fill this need, it’s a nice tale.

All the relatives are gathered around a new baby (and boy, this kid has LOTS of family), while each predicts all the wonderful things the baby will someday do, each declaring, “just like me.”  But baby Ellen just burbles and coos and burps and such until Mama declares that, “For now Ellen will do just what Ellen wants.”  Fun water color illustrations make it a charming book for families who are welcoming their own new little ones to share together.

Not as durable a cover as I usually expect from Capstone publishers, but lots of history packed in, illustrated with scenes from period paintings.  The books covers everything from rotting teeth and meat to sewage management, the plague, and medical practices of the middle ages.  The glossary provides definitions for vocabulary words that are highlighted within the body of the text.  It includes and index and suggestions for further reading.

I was surprised that I actually liked this book.  There seems to be a trend in using the gross-factor to catch the attention of readers, and I picked this book simply figuring it would be able to catch the eye of some reluctant readers, but I was surprised by how much sound science was clearly explained.  I was surprised that the publisher suggests the 300s for Dewey placement, as I would be inclined to put it in the 600s.  My one criticism of the book would to say that I found the yellow liquid graphics that are meant to look like pee spilled around the edges of the pages were a bit much.

The only good thing I’ve got to say about this book is that it’s got a really good, strong binding.  It attempts to retell a folktale of the fox and the sour grapes, but with one drab sentence per page, with pictures as drab as the text, it fails miserably.

This is a valuable resource that clearly and concisely discusses the issues surrounding censorship.  It includes chapters addressing times and places where book banning has been especially prevalent; the most frequently challenged books and authors, and the reasons why they have been challenged; and how some powerful books have led to revolutionary changes is society.  The targeted audience for this book is middle school, but I think it has a place in elementary and high school libraries as well.

There will be kids who will howl over this book, and there will probably be parents who will complain.  Presented as a cookbook collected from witches around the world, they all follow the same gruesome pattern of tongue-in-cheek recipes with plump and juicy children as the main ingredients.  The illustrations are fun, and the language is sophisticated, with lots of plays on words that would likely go over the heads of younger readers.  Because it was originally published in Great Britain, some of the slang will be unfamiliar to American readers. The different voices of the different contributing witches come across loud and clear.

Organized to follow the seasons of the year, beautifully illustrated poems are mostly about things kids can really relate to, such as autumn leaves, squirrels, summer shadows, snow angels… (“Guest List: Charles Darwin’s Garden Party” might not resonate with kids as well as the others).  The structures of the poems seem more sophisticated that those often targeting children (playing with words, rather than rhyming couplets), yet the topics of the poems are so kid-related, that I think kids will really connect with them, thus being drawn into exploring more sophisticate language.

It’s got a sturdy binding and is a small book for small hands, as it is obviously intended for young children.  A couple of rhyming couplets on each page almost read like a song, but I wished that the music had been printed in the back, because the best I could manage in the tune department was always off-rhythm.  Colorful illustrations of photo collage support the text.  Tips are offered in the back for how to engage preschool children with the text.

This book of poems dedicated to each color is a beautiful example of words and pictures working together.  Illustrations of mixed media collage invite studying, supporting and expanding upon the text.  Colors are used both literally and figuratively. Color words are printed in that color, and some descriptions of color are left for the reader to interpret, with pictures picking up where the words leave off.  The reader is drawn into the illustrations to hunt out the depictions found in the text as well as more things of that color on each page.  My one disappointment was some times when the illustrations did not include all the textual references:  I hunted for red rhubarb and feathery maples, but could not find them.

Simple text in large font describes different modes of transportation used by children around the world to get to school:  a topic very relevant to young children.  This book makes  a good teaching tool, rich in Non-fiction text features such as captions, table of contents, headings, bolded vocabulary words to indicate what is found in the glossary, and an index.  Color photos support the text and website/books suggestions for further reading are included.  A map in the back color-codes the continents to place photos geographically.  It’s got a good sturdy binding and provides guided reading level on the back.