Joanne Mattern puts the events leading up to the writing of our national anthem into order from the building of Fort McHenry, to the battle observed by Francis Scott Key between the British and the United States’ troops at Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, and beyond.

“when British troops attacked American ships, [President James] Madison had had enough. The War of 1812 lasted about two years. In the end, Madison was seen as a popular President who stood strong against being bullied by the British.” (15) At the beginning of the War of 1812, the United States did not have a trained army and only three large ships in its navy, but Madison had the support of the American people.

The British had already burnt Washington, D.C. and were converging on Baltimore protected by Fort McHenry.

Each turn of the page has the text broken up with interesting side bars, maps, diagrams, illustrations and/or portraits of leaders from the time period, or photos of live re-enactments from Fort McHenry which is part of the National Park Service.

The third and final book in Rebecca Schaeffer’s trilogy that started with Not Even Bones and gained depth in Only Ashes Remain, might leave readers feeling a little disappointed in characters in When Villians Rise. Character development was a strong suit in book two of the series, yet this reader felt it could have been taken a step further here. While the main focus is on Nita surviving, the best aspect of this book is that Schaeffer didn’t let the text turn into a teenage romance novel. Instead, the reality of relationships not going down that path was refreshing. Much of the end was a shock with many twists and turns — maybe too many. Nonetheless, the storyline wraps up leaving a reader feeling satisfied. Finish the trilogy in your library if you have the other two.

In the sequel to Not Even Bones, Rebecca Schaeffer’s energy continues from the first and dives further into Nita and Fabricio histories — character development being the focus of Only Ashes Remain. It’s not often that an author can bring that energy to the backgrounds of characters and move the plot along as well. Schaeffer masterfully keeps readers guessing what will happen next while they also watch characters start to change, grow, and be resilient. This resiliency is a trait young readers need to recognize more often in today’s world. The villains are rising up, leaving a nice cliffhanger to keep readers wanting the next in the series and is aptly named as such. A well-constructed sequel, if students liked Not Even Bones, they will most likely enjoy this continuation Nita’s struggle to succeed in getting revenge.

The Seventh Raven, by David Elliott, ropes readers into a fantasy story of a family, their dreams, and their reality. In a family of seven boys, Jack and Jane would like a girl. Once born, April struggles to stay alive until a curse allows her to thrive at the cost of all of her brother’s lives. April will spend her young adult life trying to find a way to break the curse. But Robyn, the seventh boy, will not want to escape the curse. David Elliott’s poetic creativity here is masterful. He found just the right word choice, just the right cadence, and just the right tone for each character. All of these choices are also explained at the end of the text — an ah-ha for those that didn’t catch the stylistic and tonal shifts. This novel in verse could easily be used in the classroom for students to discover many aspects of poetry. For IB schools outside of the US, this would be an excellent work in translation. Highly recommended for lovers of literature.

The NBM Graphic Novels publisher has another home run with the terse writing of Alex Nikolavitch combined with the creative reflectiveness of Feliz Ruiz’s art in The Disney Bros.: The Fabulous Story of Walt and Roy. Nikolavitch thrusts the reader into the tension of Roy and Walt’s working relationship. Both men are “ideas” men but Walt comes off as a little more savvy and a little more gruff. Success was not immediate once Mickey Mouse came to life, but with playing his cards right in the Hollywood market, Walt and Roy are able slowly become the dominant force in the cartoon industry. Walt has been coined a visionary before and Nikolavitch portrays this aspect of his story as the strongest characteristic of the man — always looking for the next opportunity to go bigger. From comics to talkies to full-length feature movies to the crazy idea of an amusement park, Walt may have vented his frustrations in boisterous ways but he did not let frustrations stop his creativity in how the business could grow. Readers will also see that the business life of all things Disney were not all happy endings, despite their overall success.

Ruiz’s graphics were spot on, from the “Hollywoodland” version of the Hollywood sign in the 1920’s to TV cameras on set in the 1950’s. The variety of sizes of panes and overlapping of backgrounds felt perfect for the tension that existed between the two brothers. While students might not see this during a 1st read, it wouldn’t surprise this reader if students checked it out again and again, slowly realizing how well the graphics support the “angle” Nikolavitch refers to in the introduction of the book.

Overall, this is a highly recommended graphic biography for school and public libraries.

Lynette Noni’s darker adventure fantasy, The Prison Healer, will bring vibes of other popular fantasy, from Incarceron to The Hunger Games. Kiva Meridian has been living inside the prison of Zalindov for the past 10 years, using the teachings of her father to guide her as the prison’s primary doctor or healer. Kiva’s past comes to the reader in waves, while the plot rolls along quite rapidly over the course of fall season. Kiva also has the job to give new inmates the mark of the prison, as she cuts a “Z” into the top of an inmate’s hand upon arrival. The physical scarring doubles as mental scarring for Kiva as she believes she is wrongfully imprisoned. Yet she does want to do her job, one of the best ones to have in the prison, to the best of her abilities, including protecting the most important patient, the Rebel Queen. Kiva will be tested in her abilities to navigate a budding romance, maneuver political turmoil, and survive deadly “ordeals”. Two of the three she passes with flying colors as a pro-fem protagonist. This reader wishes Kiva discovered her own superpowers to survive the “ordeals” rather than relying on those of others. Still, the quick pacing of the plot and dialogue, with many twists and turns, will keep any fantasy reader entertained, even if they skim a few pages here and there. Complete with a cliffhanger that came at the last minute, The Prison Healer is worth adding to school library shelves grades 7 and up.

As a sequel to Give the Dark my Love, Revis didn’t grasp this reader’s attention as much as with the first book. It focused on the politics of the story and less on character development. It was a slower read as the character’s ideas were repetitive. The romance of the entire story didn’t sit well because of what felt like a forced coupling. Characters who had different goals and beliefs were put together leaving this reader thinking it would never work out. Only the last part of the book was worth the time to read as there is an unexpected twist.

The cover photo of five diverse six year olds with five diverse puppies will draw young readers into this book about owning their very first puppy.

The first nineteen pages alternate through the five joyful children interacting with their various puppies. Sniffing hands, putting on collars, walking on a leash, learning to sit and stay, providing food and fresh water, and cleaning up puppy meshes are some of the subjects written about in huge font short sentences. Then, the final eleven pages are meant to be shared with the child and an adult to get them on the same page with puppy care. ‘A Bed or Crate’, ‘Things to Cuddle’, ‘Sense of Smell’, ‘Choose a Name’,’ Walking on a Leash’, ‘Sit, Stay, and More!’, ‘Going Outside’, ‘Being Patient’, ‘Food and Water’, ‘Checkups’, ‘A Wagging Tail’, ‘Always Be Gentle’, and ‘Stay Safe’ are the topics to be discussed between the child and adult.

Jill Wachter’s minimalistic photos of puppy and child with her illustrated balls, collars, and other puppy items accentuate the corresponding text.

Fans of the Disney channel’s Puppy Dog Pals series will enjoy this retelling of Happy Birthday, Puppy Pals!  from season one in 2017.

Puppy Pals Rolly and Bingo are excited about having a birthday. It never crosses their minds they should be giving each other a gift until their sister Hissy the cat brings it up. In the end, both Rolly and Bingo trade their favorite thing to get a present for their brother in true ‘Gift of the Magi’ fashion. This time though, Hissy trades her own things to get the puppies favorite things back.

Fans of the Disney channel’s Vampirina series will enjoy this retelling of Vee is for Valentine from season one in 2017.

Vampirina, or Vee for short, is part of a vampire family who has moved to Pennsylvania from Transylvania. This is their first Valentine’s Day. They have always celebrated Ghoulentine’s Day, in the past. Vee has made two sets of holiday cards to give out for the occasion. One set for her human friends at school and another different spookier set for her Transylvania friends and family at home. When one card from each set gets into the wrong grouping Vee must retrieve the spooky card from a classmate before it is opened.

“Loving our friends is what monsters do best… and what VALENTINE’S DAY is all about.”

Fans of the Disney channel’s Doc McStuffins series will enjoy this retelling of Brontosaurus Breath from season one in 2012. Written for beginning readers (Level Pre-1), there are pictographs inserted into the sentences of characters and their names.

Lambie and Bronty want to give their toy friends ‘cuddles’, but three sets of friends run away, while the last friend ‘passes out.’ It turns out Bronty has some salami stuck in his teeth from lunch causing bad breath. Doc McStuffins removes the salami and teaches Bronty how to brush his teeth. The toys “have a toothbrushing party!” when Bronty is afraid to use a toothbrush.

For the past 16 years, Hazel has been living with a small radius of her house that includes her school, a few stores, a mini-golf course, and one restaurant. Her town is not small, but if she goes outside of this radius, the universe literally begins to freak out. When she was born, a rift, or a tear into the universe, was formed. The rift acts up now and again spitting out things from other dimensions — trees, furniture, and not known to Hazel, other Hazels. The government had set up barns on their property to monitor the rift and government agents had become Hazel’s friends as they had to track her every move. But her 16th birthday is the flashpoint. The rift begins its meltdown on a whole new level. Hazel will meet her versions from other dimensions and will slowly learn her destiny in the process of saving her world from being entirely sucked into the rift. Corrine Duyvis’ incorporation of current coming of age issues into an out-of-this-world experience feels surprisingly authentic. Teens will appreciate Hazel’s struggle to be her true self, even if it is something she learns through the eyes of her other selves.

I don’t like it. It’s supposed to be a Level One early reader, but it’s got a lot more big words than the level two books I’ve read from the same series. It tries to invite interaction by telling the reader to give Bunny a high five or poke him on his elbow, but the story is kind of lame: Bear tells us that Bunny is noisy everywhere, they go to the library, Bunny is noisy there too, and then they go to a movie where they both get shushed by others in the audience for talking about how hard it is to be quiet.

It’s very much a VERY early reader (Ready-to-Read Ready-to-Go!, which comes before Pre-Level one). It has only one to two sentences per page, and those are very short, direct, and repetitive, to the point of stilted reading. Normally stilted writing annoys me, but this works almost like a wordless book, where the bright, amusing illustrations tell a complete story even without the text: Cat and Dog play tricks on each other, taking turns claiming possession of a stuffed dinosaur until one of the tricks backfires and the dinosaur falls down a hole, where Mouse gets to claim it; Cat and Dog solve their problem by working together to put on a play to earn enough money so they can each purchase their own stuffed toy, which makes Mouse happy too, since he’s the storekeeper who gets their money.

I’m picky about early readers, and I like this one. The familiar characters (Farmer Brown and his crew) will draw kids in, and the amusing illustrations support the text. The sentences are simple and repetitive enough to support emergent readers, but they still manage to tell a story kids can relate to — heading off on an adventure, everybody enjoying their own preferred amusements, and then coming together to roast marshmallows over a campfire.

I’m picky about early readers, and I like this one. The sentences are simple without being stilted. There’s enough repetitiveness to the text to support emergent readers. But there’s still an amusing story to it. The entertaining illustrations and familiar characters (Farmer Brown and his crew) and familiar situation (staying cool in a pool on a hot day) will all help draw kids in and give them reasons to connect with the story.

It gets points for repetitive, predictable text patterns and for rhyming and for attractive illustrations that support the text while presenting students with examples of a wide variety of birds in different settings. It also gets points for providing extra information in the back for those who are curious. My complaint with the book is that it fails to use complete sentence structure. The repetitive pattern used consists of “Bird (preposition) a (noun), (verb).” I would have been so much happier with it if it had included, “There is a…” at the beginning of each, or even if each had started with “A” and the comma had been replaced with “is.” Providing young students with many examples of good grammar is part of language learning. This one sets an example of sentence fragments, which has a place in poetry, but I didn’t find especially suitable to this format.

Because it is an early reader (Ready-to-Read level 1), the information is pretty basic, but it’s not a bad choice for what it is, though it can’t exactly be called substantial. With one to three sentences per page, it simply but accurately describes how the earth formed, how volcanoes form, and how they continue to shape/change the earth’s landscape. Clear, simple drawing help enhance the text to convey meaning.

For an early reader (Ready-to-Read level two) it packs in a solid amount of information. It’s written in a tone that expresses enthusiasm for the topic. It’s illustrated with a combination of color photos and cartoonish drawings and charts. The graphics add to the appeal without distracting from the text. It’s a solid choice to pique the curiosity of young readers.

I’m sorry, but the story is boring and the sentences are stilted. It tells about some classmates who are competing in a relay race. It tells us they struggle when they practice and that they win in the end, but there’s nothing that makes the reader care one way or the other.

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.