Starting with a description of one of Ronaldo’s most famous goals, this biography is sure to be a hit with young soccer players. The book highlights Ronaldo’s career progress from his professional debut in 2002 at age 17 to his move in 2018 to his current team, Juventus. Ronaldo’s commercial sponsorships are mentioned briefly, but some of his charitable contributions are described in more detail. Very little is said about his personal life. This book is definitely targeted at the soccer lover.

Born into slavery, John and Millicent listened to their parents’ stories of their people flying to freedom. Even after their parents, Samuel and Maggie were sold away, those seeds of freedom survived in their minds and hearts. When the overseer injures a majestic bird as if flies over the plantation, John and Millicent risk their safety at night to retrieve and tend it. The bird slowly recovers, but refuses to leave. Secret word reaches their ears that in a week, John would be sold to a faraway farm. Following the flight of the bird, John and Millicent run through the storm to freedom.

Freedom Bird is Jerdine Nolen’s second book in a multigenerational narrative of an African American family. Big Jabe and Thunder Rose, the first and third books respectively have the storytelling characteristics of a Tall Tale. In Freedom Bird, Jerdine Nolen’s powerful storytelling voice can be heard in the story’s language and cadence without the hyperbole found in Big Jabe and Thunder Rose.

An important story told in a powerful voice that belongs in every library.

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!

Well-known author Lois Lowry (The Giver, Number the Stars) presents her reflections on World War II in verse.  Born in Honolulu four years before the bombing at Pearl Harbor, she opens with the image of herself playing on the beach with the attack of the USS Arizona on the horizon behind her.  With research to back her poems, she presents grim facts of the loss aboard the USS Arizona, for example, the fact that there were thirty-seven sets of brothers aboard. Part 2 moves on to the bombing in Japan, “another horizon,” where the Lowry family lived, with mention of people and artifacts found after the bombing.  Black and white drawings by Kenard Pak contribute to the artful depiction of the lens from Lois Lowry’s childhood.

While the suggested call number for this book is 940.54, the World War II section, this book is not hard research material. While facts learned are interesting, the verse style lends itself more to the emotions associated with World War II. Perhaps a better spot for it would be on the poetry shelf.

This book of 74 pages has short four to six page chapters with one black and white illustration per chapter. There is just the right amount of Korean cultural differences included to make Korean students feel recognized and non-Korean students to say, “Wow”, I never new that, “That’s cool.”

Mindy has been at her new school in Florida for a few months now. Lunar New Year is quickly approaching, reminding Mindy of how much fun Lunar New Year had always been with her mother and father. Unni, Mindy’s afterschool babysitter, is Korean, also. Unni’s mother is busy making special foods for their Lunar New Year celebration and makes extra for Mindy and her father.

Dad ( appa in Korean) wants to take Mindy to Orlando, FL, for the Lunar New Year Parade. Mindy’s not sure if she wants to go. How fun could it be without her deceased mother along. Appa tells Mindy to invite her friend Sally to come to the parade with her. At school on Friday, Mindy tells her class all about Lunar New Year during “What’s New with You?”. She even has special rice cakes to share ( not sell, like the trouble she got into in book #1) with her class.

On Saturday, appa suggests Mindy wear the hanbok (Korean dress for special occasions) to the parade her mother helped her purchase last year. It just fits. Off to the parade in Orlando with appa and Sally they go. The parade in wonderful and so big, but does not seem to have any Korean representation. Once the parade is over, Sally and Mindy see a huge Pikachu balloon floating by and run after it to take pictures. Sally and Mindy get worried, almost panicky, once they realize appa was not able to follow them through the crowd. Sally’s emergency cellphone battery has died. And neither one of them knows their parents’ cell numbers. Now what? Sally does have an emergency $20 bill for food, though. That is where appa and his friend find Sally and Mindy in the food court. The four of them have lunch, then make arrangements to meet back at Mindy and appa’s house for a Korean Lunar New Year dinner.

Mindy comes to realize that “without Mom here to celebrate with us, … I could still like it. And we could have new traditions and make new memories with our new friends.” (71)

Author Lyla Lee notes in her Acknowledgments, ” I wanted to write a book about the fun Korean traditions that my parents kept alive in our family despite the fact that we moved to the United States more than twenty years ago.”(75) She has succeeded in a most wonderful way!

Mindy Kim is a 7 1/2 year old who has just moved to Florida from California with her dad, months after her mother died. Mindy is worried about starting a new school. “My old school had kids of many different colors. But here, no one looked like me.” ( 5) Her new teacher does not know how to pronounce her Korean name Min-jung and asks, ” ‘ Do you have an English name?’ ” (10) At lunchtime, the other students have never seen a Korean lunch and laugh. After school is better, when she goes to Eunice’s (Unni) house because Unni has a dog. Mindy wants a dog of her own so much.

Mindy’s second day of school is better because she has made some goals for herself, just like dad does. First, Mindy asks Sally if she can eat lunch at her table. That worked. Sally is interested in Mindy’s seaweed snack and soon has everyone at the table wanting to try it, too. Sally gives Mindy the idea of trading food for the seaweed. Then Mindy gets so many snacks she can’t eat them all. Then, Sally suggests she sell the seaweed snacks to the other students. Mindy’s seaweed snack business is taking off. She wants to use the money she earns to get a puppy. A puppy would help dad feel better, too, because he is still sad over mom’s death, like Mindy. Another student tells on Mindy for selling the snacks which is against the school rules. When the principal gets involved, Mindy and Sally become upset with each other for their part in the rule breaking. Principal involved means parents get notified, and Mindy’s not having a mother comes up again. Dad takes it all in stride and helps Mindy apologize to Sally. Later, when everything has settled down, dad has a special celebration for Mindy for making it through her first good week at her new school.

This book of 77 pages has short four to six page chapters with one black and white illustration per chapter. There is just the right amount of Korean cultural differences included to make Korean students feel recognized and non-Korean students to say, “Wow”, I never new that, “That’s cool.”

Crackers is a dog who has a list of things to do: bark, nap, pee outside, sniff things and lives with a cat named Butters. One day their life is disrupted when their owner brings home a new puppy named Peanut. Peanut pees in the house, eats Crackers food, and keeps them up at night. Butter and Crackers try to get rid of Peanut, but they keep getting in trouble for the things Peanut does. One night Peanut walks out the front gate and gets lost. Crackers and Butter realize they miss Peanut and set out to find him. This graphic novel will have students laughing at the silly things the animals do and say. (Butter tells Peanut the toilet is a jacuzzi and the handle makes it spin.)

A little girl and a cat are playing when the cat gets sick. When the cat says it doesn’t feel well, the girl asks if the cat wants a hug. The cat does, so she hugs the cat. Then a series of animals follow saying they need a hug from the girl. The girl is liking the hugs less and less and the illustrations show her more and more bedraggled. She doesn’t feel well and the cat asks if she wants a hug which makes her feel better. The book seems like it could be great for tolerance and sticking up for oneself, but it gets a little muddled at the end.

In Kevin the Unicorn: Why Can’t We Be Bestie-Corns? a new unicorn moves in next door to Kevin and Kevin knows that they will be best friends. They try to be friends, but they just don’t like the same things. Eric likes clam juice and it is not Kevin’s favorite. Kevin wants to do something sporty, but Eric just couldn’t do it. They realize that they don’t have to be best friends, but they can still be friendly to each other. The illustrations are bright and colorful. The vocabulary and expressions are fun (flummoxed, great galloping glitter pants) and will make readers laugh.

This is a story of an acorn told in the style of The House That Jack Built. It starts out with the treehouse that Jill built and follows the acorn with different animals. The acorn is eventually planted by the squirrel and grows into a big tree that holds the treehouse that Jack built. The text is lyrical and rhyming and includes fun to say words like Hullabaloo and Pee-ew. The illustrations are bright with the landscape is in various shades of green and the animals are cartoonish. The human characters in the book are white.

What do you do if you work at a zoo? You might brush a hippos teeth, tickle a tapir, or pick up panda poop. Each page of this informational book looks at what zookeepers do for different animals at the zoo. Each page has an illustration in cut and torn paper collage, a simple statement in large, colorful font and 2-3 sentences describing what they do for that animal. The back matter includes a short bullet point list of what zookeepers do, zoo pros and cons, a zoo timeline, a list of the world’s top zoos and facts about the animals featured in the book.

This story tells of the life of Mohammad Alaa Aljareel. Alaa stayed in Aleppo as the destruction of war in Syria forced many to flee. A caring man who worked as an ambulance driver, Alaa was struck with condition of the many cats left behind by fleeing families. By providing them food and water, Alaa soon was caring for more cats than he could manage. Through local and international support, Alaa established a home for abandoned cats where they are safe and loved. In the last few years, Alaa has also extended his shelter to include other animals and created playgrounds and an orphanage for the children of Aleppo.

An touching story of the power of love and the impact one good person can have on the world even amidst devastating circumstances. Alaa’s life is an inspiration.

The book begins with a letter from Mohmmad Alaa Aljareel in both English and Arabic.

David is starting his first day at a new school and he’s worried about making friends. When recess arrives, David heads out with a pocket full of rubber bands. He searches the children engaged in a variety of recess activities; tag, hide-and-seek, reading, video games, and hopscotch for someone who would play elastic skip with him. Finally he approaches a girl who responds to his question and asks how to play. So begins David’s first friendship at his new school. The next day, David runs to recess with his friends to chant and jump elastic skip.

A first day of school book that tells the story of fitting in, overcoming shyness, taking chances, and finding friends. By sharing something special to himself, David forges new friendships.

“Is art worth a life?” This is a central premise not only of Robert Edsel’s The Greatest Treasure Hunt in History but the question for the existence of Monuments Men. The United States’ Monuments Men were a special group of eleven men and one woman whose mission was to hunt down the thousands of pieces of art being stolen during World War II across Europe, collecting them for restoration and redistribution after the war. These weren’t your average privates in the ranks, though one was a private. These were volunteer civilians with connections to the art world — art museum curators, art historians, architects, a sculptor, a dancer. In fact, 13 other nations lent their aid with their own monuments men and women groups creating a force of 350 trying to salvage culture in an expansive war zone.

In this beautiful book, Edsel weaves a story with photography to restore damage caused by the Nazis. The Nazis changed laws stripping citizens of owning private property, allowing for the “legal” taking of anything. In fact, “safeguarding” was nothing more than a Nazi synonym for “theft”. The readers see the protected art through the eyes of Deane Keller, who 20 years earlier had come to Italy as an art student, and Fred Hartt, and art historian. Taking clues from past bombings and the location of important works of art, these civilian soldiers tried to figure out locations of hidden art as well as if the art left was salvageable. They had very little help from the real U.S. Army — no transportation.

For war history enthusiasts and art buffs, descriptive writing will pique their interest throughout. Those not so into this might be overwhelmed by all of the names and little side stories around the saving of the art. Yet Edsel gives a glimpse into what it was really like for many during the war from an angle not many people would stop to consider.

So is art worth a life? One of the Monuments Men, and an artist himself, said it’s more than dying to save an object –it’s dying to defend a cause. To this end, learning about this aspect of war, these people who saved art, is worth one’s time reading.

The Queen’s Assassin by Melissa de la Cruz is a classic, cookie-cutter, young-adult novel that many teenagers will enjoy. Caledon Holt, the Queen’s Assassin, and Shadow, a prospective Guild member, are brought together and forced to team up as assassin and apprentice. Undercover, they make their way to an enemy kingdom in search of a conspirator, and in the process fall deeply in love. The fast-paced writing style along with the action-packed plot make it a fun and fast read. The conflict of the plot was also engaging and keeps readers on the edge of their seats throughout the entire story. Despite these positives, the book has several flaws. The character development was sub-par, especially with Caledon Holt, as there was little to no depth given about his life as an assassin. There was also a lot more focus on the romantics between the two main characters as opposed to the plot, which made the storyline a tad elementary. The common tropes found in the young-adult genre are prevalent in this book, for example, the “I’m not like other girls” trope that’s seen with Shadow. Younger teenage readers will absolutely adore the unequivocal romance between Shadow and Caledon, and older readers who like the young-adult genre will appreciate this book as a simple, quick, and entertaining read. The book may be a bit unoriginal but is enjoyable nonetheless. I would not recommend this book to readers who are looking for a complex and advanced novel, but rather to young readers who simply want to read a pleasant love story. 

With BIPOC authors hopefully getting their coming of age moment in publishing, teachers seem to want texts that are “not about the struggle”. But “the struggle” our life, and like all of life, there are so many experiences and layers to it. This is a theme of coming of age novels — realizing the complexity of one’s and others’ lives. This is the theme of Patron Saints of Nothing. Randy Ribay offers a look into a life in the Philippines from the perspective of an emigrant looking for an explanation. Jay is in the 2nd half of his senior year. He is struggling with his choice to go to the University of Michigan. He is struggling to regain friendships that were damaged, especially one that meant a lot to him — his similarly-aged cousin in the Philippines. But that one might be too late to fix, as Jay gets the news that his cousin has been killed. His father doesn’t want to talk about how his cousin died, which makes Jay’s suspicions even greater. When he receives a mysterious text, he knows he has to go to the Philippines to investigate under the guise of visiting relatives during his spring break.

Jay’s journey into the lives of his family in the Philippines helps him understand his family’s story, even amid his belief that his own uncle killed in son. Unraveling the mystery is tough on Jay. For this reader, the reminder is that there are many peoples of color, many stories, many struggles going on. Life is complex. Randy Ribay’s voice through Jay allows readers to follow him and see this complexity, see the struggle and appreciate that life’s choices are complicated, layered and sometimes not what we want, but we persevere. Ribay’s voice through Jay into President Duterte’s war on drugs is a bonus that one hopes readers will do a little wiki searching for their own greater knowledge of the world.

A thought provoking story with wonderful family and friend dynamics continues in Book Two of the Donut Dreams series by Coco Simon. In Book 2, we have Lindsay’s (from book 1) cousin’s story. Kelsey and Lindsay are both entering middle school and both work in the Donut Dreams Shop of the ‘Park’, their grandparents restaurant in the small town of Bellgrove.

Kelsey is not a fan of change. Middle school has change written all over it. One of the first changes Kelsey faces is having two of her friends try out for a different sports. Kelsey likes field hockey, as does her friend Sophia. Her friends Bella and Riley have decided to go out for soccer. Kelsey’s circle of close friends is expanding from elementary school and she’s not sure how she feels about that. Then, Casey nominates Kelsey for the sixth grade class representative. What will that even entail?

Meanwhile, on the home front, Kelsey’s mother invites her motherless cousin, Lindsay, over for their family’s special Friday night event because Lindsay’s little brother is sick. Ugh, change.

Kelsey does not make the A Team in field hockey, but is on the support team. Kelsey’s happy with it. She is not competitive. She will have “all of the fun without all the pressure.”(79)

Now, Mom wants Lindsay go with them on their special mom and me weekend, too. ” ‘ I don’t want to share Mom with anyone more than Jenna and Molly, because sharing her with them is already too much… ‘ ” (99)

Kelsey will realize how much her family is there for her, carrying the theme family always has your back from book one.

In the end Kelsey comes to find people :

1. who want to help you,

2) here to listen,

3) let them in,

4) not knowing everything is okay,

5) not having solutions is okay,

6) kindness will always win out and you’ll stay true to yourself.

Here is a new series full of what it means to be family! It is thought provoking and reassuring all at the same time!

Book #1 – Hole in the Middle – is told by Lindsay as she works out entering middle school. Lindsay’s mother was the art teacher at Belgrove Middle School until she died two years ago. Now, Nans and Grandpa live with Lindsay, her younger brother, and her father. Lindsay’s grandparents own the restaurant ” Park View Table” or the Park for short. Lindsay’s extended family works at this restaurant, too.

Now that Lindsay is starting Belgrove Middle School she will be starting to work in the family restaurant, too. The special part of the restaurant that sells donuts.

The theme “family always has your back…” (44) runs continuously throughout this book with a warm sense of comfort. Middle school is definitely a time in life when a person is trying new things and “start to figure out who you are and what you like.” ( 94) This is a time when comfort is needed. Lindsay’s grandma Mimi comes to town to help her find a special dress for the upcoming Fall Fling. Mimi brings a wide array of dresses with her from Chicago for Lindsay to try on at a ‘dress party’, but Lindsay wonders if it is a ‘pity party’ because everyone else’s mother in this small town is helping their daughter pick out their Fall Fling dress.

Now is the time for the title’s hidden meaning to be revealed. “Nans says that we’re like donuts…we have holes is us, and I guess for me that hole is where I miss Mom…But that like a donut’s shape, we’re surrounded by people, in a tight circle, so that the hole doesn’t get any bigger.” (128)

Each chapter title is topped with candy sprinkles just like on top of a donut.

The first two chapters of book #2 SO JELLY, finish off this book.

There are 15 pages of text with two paragraphs per page opposite color team action photos.

The Atlanta Flacons out of Atlanta, Georgia, “have played in the National Football League (NFL) for more than 50 years. The Falcons have had good seasons and bad. But time and time again, they’ve proven themselves.” (4)

The book includes information on the Falcons’ coaches, team star players, their playoff and Super Bowl games, and statistics on all of the above.

I am not a football fan by any means, yet I was impressed by the way the author showed the Falcons’ effort to overcome obstacles from their beginning years to 2017.

The book includes: a table of contents, a time line (which snakes around the page), a postgame quiz, a glossary, a website (booklinks.abdopublishing.com), and an index.