This informational book on Vietnam includes: location, landscape and climate, wildlife, people, communities, customs, school and work, play, food, and celebrations before a timeline, Vietnam facts, glossary, with factsurfer.com website, and index. The information given is good solid information. It is what is not given that makes this a problematic book for young people.

The location maps show Vietnam both up-close and on a worldwide scale. The climate lists the monsoon months, but the inset lists the temperatures for only four months which do not correspond with the months specifically named for the monsoon seasons. This would be confusing for younger readers.

The biggest problem with this book is the use of Vietnamese words without their definitions half of the time. This often takes place on the photos. On page 13, there is a river scene with many boats being rowed by people standing . The word or phrase “SOC TRANG” is inset on the photo, is SOC TRANG the river or the boat people or the mode of transportation? On page 16, there is a row of five traditionally dressed young ladies walking with the word “AO DAI” inset on the photo. Is AO DAI their clothing style? I do not blame author Emily Rose Oachs for this confusion because most often the authors do not choose the photos put in their books.

The timeline is also a bit confusing because the events listed are most often not directly above their place on the timeline. It lacks adequate space on the line, squeezing in six events at the very end and four other events spaciously displayed.

And lastly, there is a centuries old building on the front cover of the book and repeated on the title page which is not identified anywhere in the book.

Readers will love to watch Rollo the rambunctious bull dog as he chases a tennis ball, digs too many holes, tracks muddy feet into the house and even onto a sofa, chews a shoe, and chases a chipmunk without stopping into a stone wall.”But there’s one thing that Rollo loves to do the most. And that’s to say he’s sorry.”

Keith Frawley’s illustrations are hilarious. They perfectly capture Rollo’s enthusiasm and his boy’s frustration.

In book one, Nicky, the new kid in town, finds a friend in Aaron only to loose him, when Aaron’s mother dies.

This book is part two of the pre-story behind the HELLO NEIGHBOR video game. It is so much deeper than I ever imagined it would be!

In book two, Nicky is trying to cope with his loss of Aaron while beginning a new school year. Nicky finds himself studying Mr. Peterson’s ( Aaron’s father) every move. Nicky is not convinced that Aaron and his little sister, Mya, have gone away to live with their aunt in the wake of their mother’s death. Mr. Peterson is so strange, by Nicky’s standards. Mr. Peterson continues to go to the Golden Apple Amusement Park, outside of town, which he designed, in its now closed run down state. Why? Is there some evidence of wrong doing Mr. Peterson is trying to get rid of there? The town is debating if they should demolish the park and revitalize the area. Nicky, Mya’s friend- Maritza, and Trinity have set themselves a goal to find out the truth about Aaron’s and Mya’s whereabouts. Are they living with their aunt, or has their father done something with them? They need to find all the evidence they can before the old park is demolished and the evidence with it.

Memories of driving cross state over the mountain passes of Washington came to mind while reading this book.

Trucker ( a semi-truck loaded with a shipping container) is full of himself.” Trucker was bigger and stronger and tougher than anyone else on the road.”(4) The mopeds, cars, and pick-up trucks all give him a wide berth. Then one day, Trucker makes his first trip over mountains. New road, new views, and new experiences. Trucker sees his first freight train. Trucker is impressed by the number of cars Train carries, but does not like the way everyone admires Train.

Trucker tries racing Train, but Train gets the right-of-way. Trucker finally pulls ahead when Train stops at the station. Trucker starts up another mountain pass. The mopeds, cars, and pick-up trucks can pass Trucker on this uphill grade, under his heavy load. As Trucker rests at the top of the pass, he notices the train gate is broken off down in the valley. Trucker zooms into action to speed past the mopeds, cars, and pick-up trucks on the downhill grade to stop the traffic at the train crossing since the train grate arm is broken. Trucker blocks the train crossing, also, blocking the other vehicles view. They are not happy. Once Train goes speeding through the intersection the other vehicles cheer for Trucker who kept them safe. “And Trucker started off, along with the others, happy to share the road.” (32)

Photoshop at its fantasy finest. Matthew Rake along with illustrator Simon Mendez work their magic presenting ten “What If” scenarios of ancient beasts who suddenly appeared today.

” WARNING! These extinct beasts are not alive today, and the encounters seen in this book are not real. But just imagine if they were…”(4) Dimetrodon, Inostrancevia, Sarcosuchus, Quetzalcoatlus, Ambulocetus, Andrewsarchus, Entelodont, Phorusrhacid, Smilodon, and Hyaenodon are each individually presented as if they were alive today and matched up with a present day animal in an illustration that looks look it was taken with a camera.”Now can you imagine what might happen if they arrived back in today’s world? Well, you are about to find out…” (6) The script goes on to mention the pair briefly before moving exclusively to the prehistoric animal. The information on these prehistoric nondinosaurs makes the book worth purchasing, while the past versus present aspect makes the book catch the reader hook, line, and sinker. A few of the matches are off a bit like the Quetzalcoatlus which only lived in North America and they have it pictured with giraffes in the wild, but I’m sure the young reader will forgive this. Each prehistoric animal is given a side bar with its name pronunciation, where it lived, length, weight, and a black outline drawing of the animal standing beside a human to show its relative size.

If nothing else, the photos are eye catching!

Video game players of HELLO NEIGHBOR just might want to know the background story behind their video game.

Here goes. Nicky’s family moves around a lot because newspaper editors (Nick’s father) are going the way of the print newspaper copy. It is summer when they move to Raven Brooks. Nick meets Aaron, the boy living across the street by reading notes Aaron posts in his upstairs bedroom window. They soon meet and begin playing pranks on the town together.

Little by little, Nick learns about Raven Brooks’ closed amusement park and the tragic death of a little girl there. Aaron’s father, Mr. Peterson, was the engineer who designed the park. Mr. Peterson was famous for designing amusement parks from around the world. Strange accidents soon began happening in the parks Mr. Peterson designed.

As the clues fall into place Nick will realize , “Maybe two kids with a bunch of missing pieces don’t make each other whole–the perfect machine with all its parts in place. Maybe they just empty each other out more.” (196)

Aaron’s father will tell Nick not to come back to their house. Later, by way of notes, Nick tells Aaron, “IT’S OK IF YOU ‘RE NOT OK.” (202) and Aaron tells Nick, “I make bad things happen.” (206)

My third grade friend who has played HELLO NEIGHBOR stated, “If you like the game, you’ll like the book.”

Love being in the great outdoors? This book will inspire the reader to trek in the Mojave and/or Colorado Deserts of Southern California in the Joshua Tree National Park established in 1994. The book is filled with photos, photo insets, graphs, charts, and maps dealing with the animal and plant wildlife, history, and activities concerning this national park. Even more information is given on this and other national parks in the online reference given through www.factsfornow.scholastic.com , keyword Joshua Tree on page 45.

Joshua Tree National Park has six mountain ranges, two deserts, oases, old gold and silver mines, many nocturnal animals, plus desert bighorn sheep, rattlesnakes, Costa hummingbirds, desert tortoise, numerous different cacti, creosote bush, sand verbena, desert willow, palm tree, and of course, the Joshua Tree.

On top of all that, “Joshua Tree is an International Dark Sky Park. That means the darkness at night is complete and stargazing is magnificent.” (37)

In 1863, Magdalys and her friends from the Colored Orphan Asylum in New York City are on their way south to find Magdaly’s brother, Montez, who has been injured in battle. It is thought that Montez is in New Orleans.

The civil war is raging as the Dactyl Hill Squad fly south on pterodactyls from New York City through Tennessee and on to New Orleans in Louisiana. Along the way they are shot at, meet Generals Sheridan and Grant, see the destruction of war up close, learn there are other dinotalkers on both sides of the war- some better than Magdalys, and feel the pressure of war. “Sometimes what you love and what you have to do don’t get along.” (122) Magdalys feels she should stay and help General Sheridan form an air corp with her dactyls, but she needs to find her injured brother, too. How can such pressure be placed on a twelve year old?

At Chickamauga the battle does not go well for the Union forces. General Sheridan asks Magdalys to fly to New Orleans to tell General Grant about their situation. Even though this is where Magdalys wants to go, the war will not make it an easy flight. They run into Confederate flyers. Magdalys may be the heroine of this story, but that does not mean she and her friends get out of this unscathed.

The children are hardened by war, needing to act as adults, and yet they are still children. Oh, how their lives have been changed forever in so short a time.

Real people, places, and events are expertly mixed with fictional people, events, and dinosaurs to make this one high flying tale.

Ellie May wants to the class flag leader but she hasn’t been picked yet. She sets her sights on being the class flag leader on President’s Day. This books follows along has Ellie May plots and plans ways to get her teacher’s attention. After many distractions and mishaps, perhaps now is the time for Ellie to be picked.

Lottie has a secret that no one knows. Lottie takes swim lessons but she never enters the pool. Along comes Walter and he helps Lottie realized that she does have courage.

Nugget convinces Fang to attend Mini Minnows Elementary school with him. Fang isn’t comfortable at school. He wants nothing more than to go home. Then the teacher ask Fang to share with the class. Fang couldn’t think of anything to share until he spotted Nugget.

SumoKitty is about a stray kitty that is looking for food and warm home. He follows Sumo wrestles home. When he proves his worth by catching a mouse, he earns his place. Over time he gets fat and the mice come back but he is out of shape. The sumo wrestlers teach SumoKitty patience and moves to catch the mice.

In this book, the author included the Japanese words for the wrestling moves.

Cake builds a fort that Monkey is not allowed in. When it is done, Monkey tells Cake about his fort.

Stink’s parents won a sleepover at the aquarium for the family. Stink has never had a successful sleepover. With his friends and an aquarium guide, Stink gets to visit many parts of the aquarium. At the end of the tour, his group had a “campfire” and Ms. D tells them a scary story. As everyone settles down to sleep, Stink is wide awake. After pranking his sister, Judy and doing some snooping around in the dark, Stink was finally able to fall asleep.

Knock Knock is a hilarious book about Bear settling down for his long winter nap. His friends have a different idea. Enjoy the jokes!

Dragons love tacos. Dragons love parties. Dragons love taco parties. But there is something that dragons don’t like. It may ruin the party.

A quaint book reminding children, especially girls to be who they are but a nice reminder to the adult that is reading it. Beautifully illustrated emphasis the message.

It’s Valentine’s time and the monsters are having a party. All the monsters tease Frankenstein for being too nice and “normal.” Frankenstein is confused. Then he finds a Valentine in his pocket. The intrigue of which monsters put it there. The other monsters are baffled by the idea that someone likes Frankenstein.

Stewart found his best friend at camp. They did so much together. One day, Stewart lost his best friend. He searched high and low but, alas he couldn’t find him. Then he received a letter from Japan. Was it from his best friend? Would he ever see his best friend again?

Amy find a sloth in the park and brought him home. The only problem is her family did everything fast. Sloths are slows, Amy’s family is fast. How is that going to work? Read this book to find out.

The book is every student’s dream of what a school should be, Between the hover desks and wind tunnel skydiving in PE, there is something foe every child to enjoy. I appreciate the author’s honesty when Jack said, “Don’t ask me how this works, I really don’t know.” It truly encapsulates a child’s imagination and creativity, leaving ways to get it to work for later, A great read as we are getting ready to build our own new school and for use with our STEM projects.

A great read-aloud book about a young girl and how she deals with nightmares. It will be especially helpful for children who deal with monsters and nightmares.

The pictures are colorful but not scary.

This book is follow up to Charlotte the Scientist is Squished.

Charlotte is excited that Grandpa has moved in with her and her family. He visits her lab daily until the day he falls ill. Along with other forest creatures, Charlotte wants to find a cure. The book follows along as Charlotte does all the things that scientists do. Does she find the cause of the illness, discover the cure, and heal her Grandpa?

There is a glossary in the back of the book.

Natalie’s Hair Was Wild! is about a young girl who likes her wild hair. A variety of animals agree with Natalie as they move in to nest in her hair. Natalie is not phased by this. Eventually, the animal sounds get to her. Follow Natalie’s story in this whimsical picture book that both boys and girls alike will enjoy.