I can’t declare it to be a terribly original story. It pretty much mirrored one of the other books in my pile that I read a few minutes later. The twist in this one is that the all the kids in the story have pet monsters instead of ordinary pets. As Pet Monster Show-and-Tell day approaches, our main character is terribly worried that she is unable to teacher her beloved monster any tricks to show off. Her anxiety builds when the other students’ pets exhibit a wide range of talents, and she doesn’t know what to say about her own friend. Seeing her distress, Hugsby offers a hug right when she needs it, which she declares is his special gift before he offers hugs to the whole class. The saving grace of this one is the way kids will be able to extrapolate to the feelings so many of us have at times, thinking we don’t have any special talents that compare to those around us, and the way it reminds us to appreciate the simple talents like giving good hugs.

I kind of had to chuckle as I read this book in August, when my “teacher dreams” are starting to kick into gear. The babysitting scenario that got out of hand seemed to reflect the themes of most teachers’ dreams this time of year. When Henry’s friend stops by and asks if he can watch her sleeping nephew for a bit, she insists it will be no problem, as the baby is sleeping. But word spreads around the neighborhood and pretty soon watching a kitten, an infant, a baby, and a puppy. One thing leads to another until complete chaos is reigning, beyond Henry’s control and his house gets trashed. But eventually they all wear themselves out and are asleep when their parents return to collect them. The last one to leave, who was the friend who had started it all says, “You see, Henry? Babysitting is easy.”

I really wanted to like this one more than I actually did. The illustrations are fabulous! They’re warm and friendly and inviting. But it’s one of those poetical sort of books that depends on a series of short rhyming phrases to tell its story, but I didn’t think the words really did their job as well as they should have. Some of the vocabulary is likely to be unfamiliar to young children, and I don’t object to exposing kids to rich vocabulary, but sometimes the words chosen seem to be better at meeting the needs of rhythm and rhyme than actually conveying meaning. It maybe almost would work better as a wordless book.

Okay, so I couldn’t quite bring myself to give it an official recommendation, because it’s not like it has anything especially literary to make it stand out. It’s your basic story of girls who get the wishes for pets granted, and then the main character worries that her pet isn’t special enough to win a prize at pet day, but then he surprises her and she decides she loves him no matter what. The story line itself practically mirrors another story I read a few minutes before this one. That being said, this book does have really appealing illustrations featuring lots of big-eyed fairies waving magic wands and flowers and sparkles and PINK, so it will certainly be a popular choice with its target audience.

It’s a fun introduction to the genre of detective novel. Strange noises in the night keep awakening the barnyard animals, but each evening when Sherlock Chick and the other animals arrive at the location of the noises, only a few clues are found, and no culprit. The cat keeps offering suggestions of what it could have been (ghost, goblin, monster…) and suggesting they all talk it through together, but everyone is too tired to stay up and address the issue, and each night they continue to be awakened. Finally, Sherlock Chick decides to investigate in the light of day when he can see things more clearly, and the culprit becomes obvious.

I’m recommending it with reservations. It’s a lift-the-flap book, which is unlikely to stand up to much hard library use, but if that doesn’t make you squeamish, it’s a really lovely counting book with beautiful illustrations, a repetitive format that asks after each animal, “Who has more babies than that?” It counts to ten and then fifteen and 25, and then the final page tells us that the spider had lots of babies, and asks the reader to count them all throughout the book. Observant readers may notice before they reach the end that most pages seem to include a spider or two, and the final page will invite them to go back and count more thoroughly on their own.

It’s sort of a hybrid picture book graphic novel that tells the story of Arnold, the guy who answers the phones at his family’s superhero business while he’s waiting to discover what his super power is. One day a call comes in when none of the other superheroes are around, so he borrows a cape himself and heads out. On his way to answer the summons he helps an old lady in a wheel chair, a little duck, and the girl who called, with his ordinary human powers of kindness, discovering he is a Super Nice Guy. I really like this one. It manages to stay true to the tone of the typical super hero tale, while reminding kids they have the power to change the world in their own ways. It’s got a good message without being schmaltzy.

It uses the format of a graphic novel and the character of a June bug to share a lot of information about assorted bugs, and June bugs in particular. As the June bug finds itself disgruntled to realize it doesn’t have some of the cool powers that other bugs have, and finally discovers his ability to avoid spider’s web, it makes friends with the other bugs. It’s not exactly packed with insect information, but many students will appreciate the graphic novel format and the personification of the bugs and learn some stuff along the way.

Originally copyrighted 1978, the cover proclaims it “Moonbear’s very first adventure,” a prequel to Happy Birthday, Moon. This one describes how much Bear loved the moon and how concerned he became when he noticed it shrinking smaller and smaller. In all his worry, he stops eating and then notices himself getting thin, which of course leads him to speculate that perhaps the moon isn’t eating enough either, so he puts out some honey for the moon. Birds come and ate the honey while Bear sleeps, and then he notices the moon getting bigger, so he things he’s found the solution, but he continues to help the moon so much that he continues to get thinner himself, because he’s not saving enough honey for himself, which leaves the birds with a bit of a moral dilemma: they could help bear by telling him that they’re the ones eating the honey, but then they’ll lose out on the honey for themselves… Both the words and the illustrations are simple and straightforward, appropriate for young children, and the seeming logical, yet wrong, path of Bear’s thinking provide young readers with an opportunity to bring their own knowledge to the story to explain where Bear is making his mistakes. A solid choice.

It’s got lots of rhyming and silly illustrations as a young girl proclaims all the ways she loves making noise, even while admitting that her mom and teacher and other library patrons don’t appreciate her noise. After being embarrassed by the complaints of the other library patrons, she decides to open a book and finds that she can be quiet on the outside while all sorts of noisy adventures go on inside her head. And that just turns her life around. The next morning she decides to listen and realizes this allows her to enjoy birdsong and to learn in school. So she decides she likes being quiet some of the time and saving being noisy for appropriate times and places. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to leap from enjoying a book to suddenly delighting in listening at school. It comes across as a bit pedantic — the author’s wishful thinking, maybe?

It’s cute. It’s fun. And it’s a new look at the role of the Easter Bunny. It’s got a repeating refrain that twists the traditional “Here comes Peter Cottontail…” to describe the adventures of Peter Easter Frog, but it keeps getting interrupted by other animals pointing out that he’s not the bunny. As he pleads his case to each animal — he can hop, he love Easter, etc. — the other animals join in. But when they run into The Bunny, he doesn’t seem too happy with the usurpers, until Frog gives Bunny and Easter egg. No one’s ever given him one before. It’s got rhythm and rhyme and a nice message about making sure those who are always giving get to receive sometimes too.

It’s a wordless picture book that shows a child of the circus refusing to wear his clown costume and choosing farmer clothes instead, and after helping to set up the circus tent and welcome guests, the last guest to arrive is dressed just like him. He and his monkey friend seem to recognize this new guest and introduce him to the boy’s clown mom and they all spend a day together full of music and juggling and food and then they wave goodbye to the rest of the clowns and head off to the farmer’s home as a family. The back flap does show that the book is the third book in a trilogy, and it would probably be best as part of the complete set. It works okay as a stand-alone, but would probably be better understood by someone already familiar with the previous encounters between these characters.

I really like this book, though I freely admit it probably has more appeal for the adults who will read it to the kids and actual kid-appeal. It’s sweet and sentimental, with humor in the illustrations as it chronicles all the firsts of ordinary things in a new year, from first waffles to first fight with your brother, to the first snowfall and on and on through the first halloween mask and the first giving and getting on Christmas morning. Just to keep things from being completely repetitive it tosses in a few other numbers, like the second lost umbrella of the year and the 226th fight with your brother, and wraps up the year with the last waffles, last snowfall, last stories. I like it for the way it celebrates ordinary moments and I could see it sparking some interesting New Year journaling projects. It’s definitely something everyone can relate to.

The book opens with Max writing invitations to his birthday sleepover, and feeling unsure about inviting the new kid, Sam, but his mom insists. Max can’t put his finger one what it is about Sam, just that there seems to be something strange about him. Throughout the story they never do come right out and say what the something is — the reader has to put the clues together. We learn he has a really good sense of smell, he’s not sure he can come to the birthday party because there’s a full moon that night, he likes his burgers really rare, after they change into pajamas that night he develops fangs and claws and really hairy hands, and when the moonlight shines on him, he runs out into the night. Though it never comes right out and say he’s a werewolf, the point is that though the boys are initially scares of his nighttime transformations, when they join him in his backyard adventures they all have a really good time and end up really liking him just as he is, not despite his weirdness, but because of it.

It’s rather got the feel of an olde world fable. Little Wise Wolf got his name because he loved to read so much that he came to know about many things and the other animals would come to him with their questions. But he doesn’t like being disturbed from his reading and complains about not having time for the other animals. When a messenger is sent to summon him to the bedside of the ill king, he doesn’t want to go, but is informed that one cannot refuse the king, so he sets off on a long journey. The trek is difficult, but he is helped along the way by the animals he did not have time for. After healing the king, he is offered a place within the castle where he can read all day undisturbed, but Little Wise Wolf realizes he must return to his friends, because he still has a lot to learn from them. From then on he is never too busy for those who come to visit him, and yet he still manages to read and learn in abundance. It’s got a lovely message, and while I can appreciate the way the illustrations contribute to the olde world feel of the story, I worry that the dark and drab colors will be a turn-off to many students and it may not circulate much.

Well, it’s title is in sparkly letters and it’s about unicorns, so you already know it’s going to be a hit with young readers. But I like it for the way it celebrates imagination. I like the way the text and illustrations play against each other, adding to the reader’s understanding. The text describes the setting as a magic forest; the illustrations show a backyard scene on the edge of some woods. When the text describes castles and magic wands, the illustrations show a tree house and a stick. The story tells of our young heroine stumbling upon a group of tiny magic horses who are learning to fly (and who look suspiciously like bunny rabbits), and discovering one who is sad because it can’t fly. After doing everything she can think of to cheer it up and help it, she decides to make him an ice cream cone, but she’s in such a hurry to take it to him that she’s running, she trips, and the cone lands on the “horse’s” head, which he turns out to like very much and is suddenly inspired to fly. So it’s essentially this author’s version of the unicorns’ origin story.

It’s a poem celebrating self-affirmation, recognizing and honoring all the things that make us each fabulous. I’m sorry to be redundant, but I can’t think of a better word: this book is unabashedly celebratory. It doesn’t just celebrate the big things, like wanting to be an astronaut, but all the little things, too, like making a great paper airplane and telling someone “bless you” when they sneeze. The illustrations are oil paintings that are vibrant and full of personality and offset the text beautifully, adding to the mood created by the text.

The illustrations are beautiful, as are the life-lessons conveyed. The book opens by reminding readers that, “School is not the only place to find a teacher.” The author then goes on to share a variety of life lessons learned from her careful observations of the animal kingdom. Gorillas taught her to respect others, Lions and tigers and sharks taught her not to be afraid, a tarantula taught her to love little lives, etc. It’s a gem!

The illustrations are bright and cheerful (and I like that the garden setting is showed as an urban rooftop garden). The text is simple (one sentence per page), and rhyming. For a garden enthusiast family, it might make a good bedtime story, but the audience really is targeting very young kids, and I’m not sure how many of them are going to care about anthropomorphized veggies calling it a day. It does use a good variety of verbs, so could be useful that way.

The publisher’s recommendation says this is a K-3 book, but I think it’s really one of those picture books better suited to older students, so I said I would recommend it for grades 2-5. Though listed as a picture book, rather than as non-fiction, it is the true story of the first woman to ride a motorcycle around the world alone, in 1973. Though never named within the body of the story (simply referred to as “she” or “the girl”), the author’s note in the back tells us that it was Anne-France Dautheville who set out from Paris, carrying only essentials. She loaded her motorcycle onto a plane to fly to Canada, drove from coast to coast across Canada and into Alaska before flying again to Tokyo, and then Bombay. The story describes her route, driving through India and Afghanistan and Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, and Germany, but mostly it describes her experiences of camping and meeting people and experiencing new places and foods. It’s more about setting the mood of adventure and exploration and independence and connecting with the world than a chronology of specific events. It really makes one want to take to the open road and go exploring.

Not every child lives in a place where they tap their own maple syrup from the trees, but every child has experience WAITING. And every child knows how time seems to go so slowly when you’re waiting. This book does a good job of conveying that, as well as a child’s attempts to see if he can speed things along: when dad says it won’t be time until the weather gets warmer, Ethan tries to convince himself that a sunny day means he can leave off his hat and scarf and mittens, only to discover that sunny doesn’t necessarily mean warm. When dad says it won’t be until the nights get shorter, Ethan realizes he can’t control that either. His final means of measuring time comes when he discovers a loose tooth, and dad predicts it will come out about the time the sap starts running, and it does!

On the one hand, I can sometimes be a bit reluctant to spend a lot of money on non-fiction for emergent readers, because they can be a bit weak on information. But those early readers need non-fiction, too, and this one earns a lot of points on the cute factor. How can baby hippopotamuses be so ugly and so cute at the same time? With only one or two sentences per two-page spread, the information is indeed limited, but it still manages to cover all the basics, and the beautiful, full-color photos do a great job of supporting the text for beginning readers. My level of Spanish probably puts me on a par with emergent readers in this instance, and I was able to work my way through with a fairly solid level of understanding. And it’s got a good, sturdy binding, too.

This is a beautiful book! The illustrations are bright and celebratory. The story celebrates diversity, while recognizing that many children face challenges that make them feel different from their peer. As a group of children work together to plant a garden, each one in turns shares a personal story of challenge (diabetes, autism, asthma, allergies, wheelchairs, blindness, deafness), yet the questions that transition from one child to the next also serve as a link connecting them in their diversity. In the end, the parallel is explicitly pointed out that the garden they’ve built is full of a variety of different kinds of plants, and how boring would it be if it was all the same.

It’s a dual-language book, sharing the story in both English and Spanish. It tells about a young girl attending a Bomba dance class that she’s not real excited about at first. She’s anxious and highly self-critical. She stands behind the best dancer in the class, ostensibly so she can watch her and follow her lead, but really she just compares herself to the older girl. When she hears she’s going to be invited to perform a solo in front of her classmates, she’s so riddled with anxiety that she is not able to pay attention to those performing before her. When she actually gets started she focuses on the rhythm of the drum and gets lost in the drum and does great. It’s an okay story. I just thought it was a bit disjointed, without clear connections drawn as to what led to her change of attitude.

It’s a cautionary tale, a reminder of human messes. It doesn’t focus on how oil is made or what it is used for. It tells how it is pumped from beneath the earth and sent through a pipeline that runs 800 miles through what was once wilderness. It tells how it is pumped onto enormous ships, and how one night the Exxon Valez ran aground and spilled its cargo of oil into the ocean, where it spread for months over thousands of miles of ocean, killing sea birds and otters, and coating shorelines. It tells that thirty years later the place where it happened has never fully recovered.