Based on the family stories handed down by the author’s grandmother, it tells the story of a year in the life of a family during the Great Depression of the 1930s. When a single mother of 8 children gets evicted from their home, they move into a shack in the woods and make it into a home. Granted, it is a very romanticized view of some harsh realities, but one of the points that the author is making (according to the author’s note in the back of the book), was that though times were hard, the memories her relatives carried forth from these times were overwhelmingly good ones. The illustrations certainly contribute to the nostalgic feel of the book, softening the harsh realities.

The text is almost an essay about friendship, a series of truisms. It might seem preachy, except that the topic is one that everyone can relate to, and the things it has to say are things that so many children will have had experience with, so rather than coming off as preachy, it comes across as a recognition and validation of their own experiences, as well as a reminder about how things can turn around. The illustrations help set the tone, being very soft and comforting and sweet.

The tone of the writing is that of a dime-store detective novel, and the cartoonish illustrations present the information in the form of rap sheets, but within this silly format is a lot of substantial information about animals with which many readers may be unfamiliar. The common theme running through to connect the animals that are included is that each exhibits some sort of behavior that could be considered anti-social: the Anglerfish is wanted for illegal fishing, the Common Cuckoo for bad parenting, the llama for assault, etc.

This is a lovely book, useful for discussing adjectives and opposites and changing perspectives. The text is a series of simple declarative sentences describing a young girl’s experiences of the ocean within a single day. The illustrations add to the meaning of the text by showing how she can say back to back that the ocean is both shallow and deep (the part that rushes up on the sand v. the part she jumps into off the end of a pier), and likewise with a whole series of other opposites. One of the things I think adds a special touch to this book is that the illustrations show the main character with hand crutches: there’s no reference to why she needs them, but the readers get to see a girl with some sort of physical impairment going about her life enjoying all the beach experiences without letting her crutches get in the way.

A great book for sharing nursery rhymes with young students, this book can be a fun way to review that which is familiar to some, while introducing famous nursery rhymes to those who don’t yet know them. As the characters are out on a walk, different things they saw throughout their trip remind them of nursery rhymes, which they share. The telling of the story includes lots of its own rhyming and repetition between the nursery rhymes, so there are many opportunities for making the sharing of this book an interactive group experience.

I like this book. It’s a science lesson disguised as a picture book. It’s written in a friendly, conversational tone, and begins by telling the reader how to find a worm in their yard, and the little cartoon-side-kick worm suggests some other things they’ll need, too (all easily accessible household items). It goes on to essentially offer a series of instructions for an observation lesson on the structures and behaviors of a typical worm. It doesn’t feel like the instructions for a science lesson, though, because it feels like the reader is just joining the kids in the illustration on an interactive adventure.

Some students may be put off by Ed Young’s somewhat dark mixed-media illustrations, but the really do a good job of evoking the mood of the story. This retelling of a Chinese folktale describes the efforts of the wind and rain and sun to win a bit as to who can force young shepherd girl (I like that the shepherd is a girl) to lose her cap. After the wind sends gales to try to blow it off, and the rain likewise storms at her through the night, it is the rising of the warm sun that shines upon her and warms her enough that she removes it herself when she begins to sweat.

It’s fun. We usually use the term “cat ladies” to describe women who have a lot of cats. But in this case the cat who’s telling the story uses the term to refer to the four women who take care of her. Princess is quite content with her comfortable world filled with the devoted attentions of the four cat ladies, until an interloper arrives. When a stray (grandchild?) shows up on the scene, the ladies’ attentions are diverted, and Princess begins feeling neglected. When she sets out on her own, she gets herself into a bit of a pickle, and it’s the stray who comes to the rescue. Princess decides she might be trainable after all.

This is a beautiful book! The color photos that fill the pages are vibrant and detailed. The text is a poem on the life of a frog. Because the text is simple and repetitive, with just a few sentences per page, it is good for beginning readers, and yet it is full of rich vocabulary (lunges and gaze and spelunks and ponder). The two page author note in the back points out the differences between anecdotal observations and scientific studies, but it doesn’t undervalue the anecdotes, pointing out that wondering and imagining are what help scientists come up with good questions to investigate. It’s not heavy on the information, but it’s the kind of book to spark curiosity.

It’s a cotton candy book. It will be popularly checked out, and loved by many, if only for its pretty, pink, sparkly cover and the pretty, sparkly rainbow on the last page. Oh, and because it’s full of fairies. It tells the story of Twinkle and her fairy friends, on their way to their Fairy Godmother’s garden party. As pretty as the roses are when they arrive, Twinkle’s friend Pippa wishes that more of them were pink, so Twinkle tries her hand at making them so, but making them so, but as she is still a bit of a novice with her magic wand, she manages to turn the entire garden and everything in it pink by mistake. When she is unable to undo her mischief, she fesses up to her Godmother, who opts for a perfectly pink party, at the end of which Twinkle’s fair power grew, and she is able to wish the world back to a rainbow of colors (on a very sparkly rainbow page).

It’s cute. Even if I don’t really like the font for some reason. The story tells about when a seed lands and starts sending down a root. The personified animals who live underground near where the root begins to grow (a mole, a family of field mice, and some ants), are all rather annoyed by the way the root begins to disrupt their lives. It blocks the paths the ants are trying to make, it pokes a hole in the mole’s bathroom ceiling, and eventually it pokes it’s way through the home of the field mice so badly that they have to move. For most of the book, about two thirds of the page area is dedicated to the illustrations of what is happening underground, with only the top third showing what’s happening above. Until they all storm up in their frustration, ready to bring the plant to its end, until one of the little mice stops them and pleads the plant’s case, pointing out that it provides shade and a view point for the ants and play space for the mice and tomatoes for all.

It’s definitely the middle book of a trilogy, and one you wouldn’t really want to purchase without having the rest of the series available, too. But I give it points for standing on its own well enough that if a student randomly picks this one up without having read book #1 (which I hadn’t), they can enjoy this adventure anyway. Enough information is explained along the way so you get the gist of what has gone on before, but this one has it’s own beginning-middle-end. Readers who enjoy it would be drawn into seeking out the other books, but it wouldn’t hurt too much that they read them out of order.It’s the story of Egg (short for Egbert), and his friends traveling through lands where they don’t speak the languages in search of someone who can help them decipher a treasure map, while dodging others who are after their secrets. It’s got pirates and jungles and human sacrifice and slave traders and a bit of romance, too.

You definitely don’t want to buy this one unless you already have or are intending to also purchase the rest of the series. This is definitely one of those series books that needs the rest of the series to complete it. As a stand-alone book this one lacks any sense of beginning-middle-end. You definitely feel like it’s all part of the middle of something bigger. There’s enough explanation offered along the way to allow the reader to more or less follow along, but it’s clear you’re missing out if you haven’t read what came before, and it ends with a cliff-hanger that leaves you feeling incomplete. It opens with two kids (the main characters) racing for their lives through some city they have just mysteriously found themselves in, being chased by bad guys. On the run and in hiding, they need to contact their adult companion while avoiding the supernatural evils who are after them, because there’s been some sort of rift opened between the world of the dead and the world of the living, and they need to put it right. It’s got an online game coordinated with it as a gimmick which will appeal to some.

This book manages to do something I appreciate but often fail to find: though it is the 6th book in a series, it stands on its own two feet, as a satisfying story itself. It has a clear beginning, middle and end of its own, and the author offers enough backstory explanation woven into this one that as a reader who has not read the rest of the series, I was able to enjoy this one just fine; I could tell these characters had had previous adventures and relationships, and reading this one gives me the hook to want to go read those others, but I did not feel like I was wandering through this story blindfolded. It opens as a slapdash “pack” of wolves, bears, and an owl find themselves compelled to leave their homeland and brave crossing a dangerous ice bridge into the unknown, as their only hope of survival. It tells of the dangers they face throughout their journey, some from nature itself, some from an enemy pack on their trail. It also tells of the friendships and discoveries made along the way.

I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve written a book review for a book I didn’t finish. I tried. I forced my way through 100 pages to give it a fair shot and see if it was going to finally get better. But I gave up. It’s slow, and rambling, and boring, with nothing offered to make the reader care about the characters or what is happening. In reading the translator’s afterword, I learned that it was originally published in the 1930s in Poland, as a serial, at a time when little was available in the way of stories written for children. This edition does not succeed in bridging the cultural gap between 1930s Poland and 2000s America. I don’t know of any child who will stick with this book past the first 10-20 pages. When I read in the afterword that, “We shall also never know if the story ever had an ending,” I thought I could never justify asking a child to slog through something that was never even going to come to conclusion. What’s the point?

It’s a book you only want to buy if you already have, or intend to purchase, the first two books, as this is the last part of a trilogy, and it doesn’t really work as a stand-alone story. It does offer a blurb on the back of the book directing readers who are unfamiliar with the previous books to a website where they can get filled in, as well as to additional extension activities and games. While I appreciate the bonus of offering the book/tech connection, I would rather the story didn’t depend on readers having access to the tech piece in order to make sense of the book. Not all students have easy access to technology, and some who do might not read the back to know about it. It would have been nice if the book did a better job of providing the necessary background bits within its covers, either with a prologue, or extra explanations/reminders woven into the main body of the text. Students aren’t always careful about making sure to read series books in order, and this one really needs to be. It picks up after some sort of previous disaster has left a high-tech town full suspicion toward their many robots, and has left a young boy so desperate to bring his parents back from some sort of digital trap that he’s willing to break the diabolical bad guy out of prison and work with him because he’s the only one who has the power to bring his parents back. You can imagine how that works out. Never trust the villain when he says he’s changed.

It’s a sequel the The 14 Fibs of Gregory K., but it works well as a stand-alone story. I haven’t read the first book, and there were just some hints in this one that made me suspect there was more that had gone before, but no holes that left me confused. It tells a story that will be dear to many students’ hearts: a seventh-grade boy who is feeling overwhelmed by the amount of time he must spend on homework, and the personal pursuits he’s missing out on, decides to take on the system in protest. I really liked that the characters all seemed believable, and his journey was not entirely smooth. The ending was satisfying without being unbelievable.

I am using one blurb to share about three ABDO Kids books, as they all come from the same publisher and author, and they share several characteristics.  They have a large format with full color photos that dominate each two-page spread so that they are visually appealing.  The text to accompany each photo is limited to a few sentences in a large font, so as to not be overwhelming for young readers, yet the information is not weak.  The text is simple and straightforward.  The topics are ones of interest to small children.  The binding is sturdy.

I am using one blurb to share about three ABDO Kids books, as they all come from the same publisher and author, and they share several characteristics.  They have a large format with full color photos that dominate each two-page spread so that they are visually appealing.  The text to accompany each photo is limited to a few sentences in a large font, so as to not be overwhelming for young readers, yet the information is not weak.  The text is simple and straightforward.  The topics are ones of interest to small children.  The binding is sturdy.

I am using one blurb to share about three ABDO Kids books, as they all come from the same publisher and author, and they share several characteristics.  They have a large format with full color photos that dominate each two-page spread so that they are visually appealing.  The text to accompany each photo is limited to a few sentences in a large font, so as to not be overwhelming for young readers, yet the information is not weak.  The text is simple and straightforward.  The topics are ones of interest to small children.  The binding is sturdy.

Not too bad as a craft idea/instruction book.  The space rover looks pretty cute.  But pretty limited on actual science.  Mostly it’s a product placement advertisement to encourage kids to by art supplies.

Accessible text, but not weak on information, this book provides solid information on four animals known for their migration patterns (Wildebeests, Monarch Butterflies, Leatherback Sea Turtles, and Arctic Terns).  Each chapter also offers a “Compare It” page, sharing information about lesser-known migrators.   Color photographs and highlighted captions are used throughout to support the text and add visual appeal.  It’s got all your basic non-fiction text features, and packs in solid information without being overwhelming or dry.  Did you know that Arctic Terns migrate all the way from one pole to the other and back again every year?!

It’s a bit weak on substance, but then it would be, given that there’s no real scientific understanding of dreams, other than knowing that everyone has them and they seem to be important to brain functioning.  The book shares some of the ancient beliefs different cultures held about dreams, dream theories developed by famous psychologists 100 years ago or more, and some common themes that seem to pop up in many people’s dreams with theories about what they may signify.  It offers an idea for creating a dream journal to help readers remember and ponder their dreams.  The basic take-away from the book is that it’s fun to think about and everyone can decide for themselves what they think their own dreams might mean to them.

Well, any kid who got really excited by the snot in the title may end up being a bit disappointed, as the text is not quite as slimy as it claims to be.  But the science is there, and well-explained to cover a wide range of things related to breathing, from snoring, to asthma, to assorted diseases.  The cartoonish illustrations are engaging, and the diagrams help explain the text, and the information is broken up into small enough blurbs to keep it from being too dry and overwhelming, even if it’s not quite as slimy as one might have hoped.  And it’s got a good sturdy binding, too.

I like this book.  I think it encourages kids to be careful observers who look closely at the world around them.  There is actually very limited explanatory text in this book.  Most of the information is conveyed through simple, yet detailed diagrams.  The topics covered are everyday objects with which students are already familiar, and of which most would have opportunities to examine close up in person as they study the book.  Obviously the information is not in-depth, but basic scientific principles are illustrated through the workings of these everyday objects such as flashlights and toasters and paper airplanes and toilets, etc. It’s a book that invites careful study as one really looks at the pictures, and perhaps then really looks at the things around us.