This is a very interesting non-fiction book about poo, s subject that is rarely explored. The book tells about different animals and their poo. At the end of the story, it explains what zoos do with all the animal poo.

Lola the armadillo spills her juice. Instead of cleaning it up, she runs off to the library. On her way, she encounters friends in the same predicament. She has them join in her journey to the library. At the library, things continue to go wrong until Lola meets a bird. The bird helps Lola and her friends clean up their disasters. This book is beautifully illustrated.

The Hidden Witch is a sequel to the fantasy graphic novel The Witch Boy. In this follow up the focus of the book moves beyond Aster and includes a larger teen group. Some of these are magical while other are not. However, they all have the same desire to figure out their life’s direction. Instead of a battle against a curse dragon, this story’s major conflict revolves around the daily wounds of everyday teenage life. This book is full of colorful images and creates a sweet story that continues the tale from the previous book.

This book is like science fiction, what I thought was only capable in Hollywood movies like ANT MAN are now working robots. Robots the size of a penny and robots that can see the small print three football fields away.

The timeline on pages 16-17 has dates from 1914-2014. Military robots clearing land mines, flying rescue missions, dropping bombs, and video recording areas for surveilance.

The book shows what they can do, not how they do it.

The book comes with QR codes, but I watched and read it at popbooksonline.com. This information is more in depth, comes with student activities ( matching and word search), and lesson plans for teachers.

Pearl and her robot Pascal are going to Gigaworld Amusement Park. While there Pearl will make comparisons between things in the park and computer coding.

Pearl introduces her readers to: code, variables, loop, if-then-else, and sequence. It all makes sense when Pearl talks about it. This story shows how coding does not need to be complicated. Older readers (adults, especially) will definitely want to read “Pearl and Pascal’s Guide to Coding” after the story is over.

Pearl and Pascal work their way around Gigaworld using tokens (a variable) until they are able to get onto the ride Python Rollercoaster with a short line. A loop is explained while they ride the Ferris wheel. If-then-else is explained as they make up their mind as to what to do next when the line to the rollercoaster is too long, in connection with a variable (Boolean).

It all makes sense when Pearl explains it.

By folding paper back and forth neatly upon itself six different projects are demonstrated, step-by-step in this book.

I found these projects easier than origami projects with a greater success rate, too. Directions are given for a snake, fish, butterfly, pumpkin, pinwheel, and a double picture.

Readers will enjoy and want to make more than one of each project as they hone their paper folding skills.

Netflix has Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishing a graphic novel version of their television show episodes. This one, The Sticky Rice Caper, is from season 1. The graphic novel follows the TV episode with a few exceptions. The graphic novel has omitted one minor VILE character and the French Interpol agents. The graphic novel has placed the factual information about France and Indonesia at the end of the story line. And Carmen Sandiego’s bio information is at the very beginning, before the new story line begins.

Carmen Sandiego is out to foil VILE (Villains International League of Evil) and their new bioweapon which will destroy Indonesia’s rice harvest. Once Vile has Indonesia starving, they will sell Indonesia their artificial rice for a huge profit.

Carmen, the highly capable heroine, defeats VILE once again with the help of her team, her custom gear, and her fighting ability.

Fast paced action the reader will not want to put down.

Early, young readers who want a minimum amount information about Kwanzaa will find two sentences opposite a large color photo dealing with Kwanzaa in this book. If they study the photos carefully they will gain an understanding of the material aspects of Kwanzaa, such as, wearing African dress, the lighting of the kinara (special candle holder), and some of the other seven symbols.

The Adbo Kids Online Free Online Multimedia Resources given at the end of the book include an audible song, downloadable word search and maze, and a coloring page from PBS’s ARTHUR celebrating Kwanzaa.

Here are ten scenes between a mother and a toddler as they go through their day noticing the differences between them. The toddler is little while the mother is big. The mother throws the ball while the toddler catches it. The toddler is up on the slide while the mother is down at the bottom of the slide.

While the only words on the page are the pair of opposites, the illustrations make it so easy to create a dialog between the child being read to and the reader.

Alice Melvin’s textured paper cut outs with movable joints bring these scenes to life! They are charming!

“Kakapo [a green New Zealand parrot] was crazy about karate.” She practiced daily at the dojo. The only move she was not able to do was the flying kick, after all, kakapas do not fly. Soon Kakapo was ready for her next karate advancement test. This test was for her black belt. At the test, Kakapo proceeded perfectly through all of the kicks, jumps, and blocks. Her final test would be a flying side kick. She would not even try it. Then, the senseis asked her to do a jumping side kick. Kakapo was puzzled. She had never heard of one before. She reasoned it out. Did it. Then, realized the senseis had tricked her into doing a flying side kick, simply by renaming it. Kakapo had earned her black belt.

Here is a child’s version of “A rose by any other name”.

All of Stacy Curtis’ action karate illustrations bring back my memories as a parent of a student of tae kwon do. Good memories.

Frankie and Maya are in the audience of the town magic show. Frankie had read all kinds of magic books in preparation for the show, even the hard ones. Then, Frankie and Maya practice a few magic tricks of their own before preforming them in front of their families. “In a lot of ways, magic was like inventing. There was a lot of science behind magic tricks. Magicians often came up with new tricks, and they had to test and retest them, like when inventors designed inventions.” (19) In true story book fashion this is leading up to the school’s talent show and Frankie wants to preform a magic act with Maya as her assistant. When the two go to audience, Maya has such stage fright the trick does not work. Mr. Winklesmith, at the magic shop, advises Frankie if you cannot get Maya’s hands to stop shaking, figure out how to do it with hands shaking. Frankie will use her inventor skills so Maya will be able to help with the trick no matter how much her hands shake. Frankie does not reinvent the wheel. She builds upon the apparatus her kindergarten buddy uses, in class, to hold the playing cards needed for their math game. Once Frankie’s new device works for the magic trick, Frankie adds glitter and magical glitz to it. In the mean time, Maya has learned a new mantra from their friend Ravi, “I’m going to be fine.” Repeating it over and over and over again.

Frankie and Maya’s magic tricks are a big success at the school talent show. And two of Frankie’s former teachers ask her to make them the same device for use in their their classrooms.

After the story, there are two sections to help with STEAM /STEM projects. The first one is “The Design Process- Something Old into Something New” and the second one is “Your Turn to Be the Inventor”. Both are child friendly bits of advise on how to get the inventive juices running.

Frankie Sparks, Third Grade Inventor is a new series to get young readers, especially girls, interested in STEM.

Frankie’s teacher announces, ” ‘we are going to research different kinds of animals, because we are going to get a class pet.’ ” (10) Frankie already knows the perfect animal because her Aunt Gina is a rodentologist. Frankie knows the class pet should be a rat. Now Frankie needs to state her case to her class. Ms. Cupid, Frankie’s teacher, insists the entire class go through the research process. This irritates Frankie because she KNOWS she already has the perfect pet and grudgingly does the research.

When Maya, Frankie’s best friend, does not agree with a having rat as the class pet, feelings are hurt. How come everyone else in the class does not agree with Frankie’s knowledge, especially Maya?

Then, Frankie comes up with an obstacle that could rule out having a rat. One of the parameters for the class pet is it must be “able to be alone for the weekend” and rats need/want fresh food daily. Here is where Frankie’s talent as an inventor excels. She invents a food storage system the rat will be able to open on its own so the rat will have fresh food daily over the weekends. Frankie’s first model does not work correctly, but she continues to work on it until it does.

Frankie’s parents and friends help her to see her other classmates’ points-of-view, but it is not easy.

Third grade emotions run the gambit, making this a very believable story.

After the story, there is a short section on the ‘design process’ and “Your Turn to Be the Inventor!”.

Definitions of Indefinable Things is a both heartbreaking and humorous novel about three teens, Reggie, Snake, and Carla. Reggie suffers from depression, and the realistic portrayal of how she lives with depression makes this a powerful story. Reggie protects herself from being hurt by keeping others away from her. But then she meets Snake. As she is drawn to him, the reader expects that this relationship will pull her out of depression and add stability to her life. But then we learn that Snake’s ex-girlfriend is seven months pregnant!

The book will cause you to worry about Reggie, and will also make you laugh. This is an very good book. Recommend.

Hiding is the story of a lovesick teen-aged boy who goes for a walk one night, and sneaks  into the basement of his ex-girlfriend’s house.  He’s trapped overnight because of the security system. When the family leaves in the morning, the main arrives, and he spends the day avoiding the maid while investigating the house he never visited when he and the girl were dating. He finds the house to look perfect and unused, and suspects that the girl wasn’t ashamed of him, but rather of her cold, unwelcoming home. The story is told from inside the boy’s head, and the teenager style of talking may wear on the reader. Twists in the story line may keep readers engaged, but the main plot, gets lost in the multiple plot lines. It was hard to maintain focus, and I did not enjoy this book.

Growing Up on the Playground Nuestro patio de recreo was reviewed by the Spanish teacher at my high school. She notes that the title of this book is an example of how sentences do not need to be translated directly, word for word. In Spanish the title says, “Our playground” yet its meanings are still very similar to that of the English title. The kids in the story start out playing in a certain part of the playground and with every progressive grade they do something different until their last year of elementary school when they have to leave to allow other children to experience and grow up there, too. It is “our playground” because they grew up on it as school children. The main character, Ana, takes it a step further by becoming a teacher at that school when she returns an adult. As a teacher, she brings it full circle by introducing new kids each year to the playground, where on it, too they will grow up and make their own. It is a lovely story, written in both English and Spanish. She recommends it. 

The Spanish teacher at my high school read El doctorcito and she feels that this this book is very culturally relevant for immigrant families and first generation Americans. Written in both English and Spanish, it tells the story of Salvador, a little boy, who accompanies his Salvadorean grandmother to a walk-in clinic because she feels more comfortable having an interpreter with her to help with the English language. Grandma is very proud of Salvador because he is a good student and they talk about what profession he would like to go into one day. Grandma gets dressed up just to take the public transportation to the clinic. When they arrive Salvador is surprised by how long the line is to see a doctor, and he noted the different people who needed help, loud children, coughing, etc. and even a lady who was crying. When Salvador’s grandma checks in they learn that there are no doctors there that speak Spanish. The doctor they see is very abrupt and assumes that grandma was Mexican. The experiencing was very upsetting for Salvador’s grandmother. He does not want her to ever go through something like that again. He imagines a clinic where doctors spoke English and Spanish, and realizes that he wanted to be that doctor someday. She thinks that all immigrants and children of immigrants can relate to needing or helping with language interpretation and being judged and misjudged by others, and she highly recommend this book.

Mi Papi Tiene Una Moto by Isabel Quintero is completely in Spanish. There are no translations included, but the Spanish teacher at my high school read this book and noted that most students who have studied Spanish for a couple years should be able to understand most of it. In addition, they can pick up new words and expressions. The book is beautifully written and the illustrations are attractive and helpful for comprehension. She liked how the places the girl and her father visit represent many communities that she has visited, where Spanish is the primary language. They show the culture and relationships that neighbors and shopkeepers have with one another. The book also portrays the people as hard working, often tired after a long day of work, but still they stay positive and the girl’s dad always makes time to take her for a ride on his motorbike to visit the people in their community. She highly recommend this book to readers of all levels of fluency in Spanish.

The Spanish teacher at my high school read this book and state that it is very well translated. She appreciated the note from Gina Rodriguez, the voice actress for the Carmen Sandiego animated TV series. She stated that “if you set out to be the best version of yourself, you cannot possible go wrong.” This she felt was Carmen’s motto. The teacher notes that this book definitely made her appreciate this character more.

This children’s story of Curious George recycling and re-using items from the trash is told in both English and Spanish. The Spanish teacher at my high school states that it is very well-translated. It is always fun to read about George’s adventures and readers can pick up some useful expressions.

The Spanish teacher at my high school read this book and said she noticed a few verb tense errors and minor translation omissions.However, she says the story is great so the few errors are definitely forgivable and will likely go unnoticed by the average reader. José M. Hernández’s true story is inspirational and he shares a wonderful message on setting goals, working hard to achieve those goals and never giving up. The story is told in both Spanish and English. She states that she will be recommending this book to her high school Spanish students.