On the one hand, I can sometimes be a bit reluctant to spend a lot of money on non-fiction for emergent readers, because they can be a bit weak on information. But those early readers need non-fiction, too, and this one earns a lot of points on the cute factor. How can baby hippopotamuses be so ugly and so cute at the same time? With only one or two sentences per two-page spread, the information is indeed limited, but it still manages to cover all the basics, and the beautiful, full-color photos do a great job of supporting the text for beginning readers. My level of Spanish probably puts me on a par with emergent readers in this instance, and I was able to work my way through with a fairly solid level of understanding. And it’s got a good, sturdy binding, too.

This is a beautiful book! The illustrations are bright and celebratory. The story celebrates diversity, while recognizing that many children face challenges that make them feel different from their peer. As a group of children work together to plant a garden, each one in turns shares a personal story of challenge (diabetes, autism, asthma, allergies, wheelchairs, blindness, deafness), yet the questions that transition from one child to the next also serve as a link connecting them in their diversity. In the end, the parallel is explicitly pointed out that the garden they’ve built is full of a variety of different kinds of plants, and how boring would it be if it was all the same.

It’s a dual-language book, sharing the story in both English and Spanish. It tells about a young girl attending a Bomba dance class that she’s not real excited about at first. She’s anxious and highly self-critical. She stands behind the best dancer in the class, ostensibly so she can watch her and follow her lead, but really she just compares herself to the older girl. When she hears she’s going to be invited to perform a solo in front of her classmates, she’s so riddled with anxiety that she is not able to pay attention to those performing before her. When she actually gets started she focuses on the rhythm of the drum and gets lost in the drum and does great. It’s an okay story. I just thought it was a bit disjointed, without clear connections drawn as to what led to her change of attitude.

It’s a cautionary tale, a reminder of human messes. It doesn’t focus on how oil is made or what it is used for. It tells how it is pumped from beneath the earth and sent through a pipeline that runs 800 miles through what was once wilderness. It tells how it is pumped onto enormous ships, and how one night the Exxon Valez ran aground and spilled its cargo of oil into the ocean, where it spread for months over thousands of miles of ocean, killing sea birds and otters, and coating shorelines. It tells that thirty years later the place where it happened has never fully recovered.

It’s a good discussion starter book around numbers and observation. A concept book about counting, it doesn’t come right out and tell the reader what is to be counted. Photos of familiar objects are presented, each of which offer several compositional elements that could be counted, leaving it up to the observer to share what they see. Sets of pictures with similar components open up discussion for the concepts of same v. different and change as well.

Well, I’m only familiar with three of the twenty-six artists discussed in this book, and I guess the main problem is that I still don’t feel very familiar with the other twenty-three. For each artists, a brief paragraph (three or four sentences) tells a bit about their preferred medium and/or themes, but the art in the book is dominated by the artistic style of the illustrator, rather than highlighting the actual art of the artists being discussed.

I want to like it more than I do. The illustrations are cute. It tells the story of a snail who’s convinced by his friend that it’s time to start looking for a new home, and expand his world beyond the bucket of strawberries where he’s been spending all his time. As they head out on their search, Snail spots the apple orchard right away, and is drawn to the bright red fruit, but Ladybug warns him about the danger of the chicken coop that lies between. While Ladybug is intent on wanting to show him a whole list of places, Snail continues to be drawn by the apple orchard, and sets off on his own, nearly falling into the clutches of the chicken. It’s fine. It just didn’t have anything about it that really grabbed me.

To be honest, it’s not my favorite of the Jack books. When I heard the author speak about the Jack books, he shared that it’s a very deliberate choice to avoid having his books fit the moralistic tale model that so many children’s books follow, and I appreciate that Jack is in general a bit of a trickster character who is less that perfect. That’s what makes him likable. But in this one he catches the bank robber in the act, and then turns around and steals one of the bags of loot himself. I thought that went a little too far.

It’s a beginning reader, with controlled and repetitive text, intended for beginning readers. The sentences are intentionally short, with a simple structure, and the danger in these type of books is trying to not let things get too stilted. Often authors will use rhythm or rhyme to avoid this. Instead, these books depend on the combination of illustrations with the text to give them humor and personality that lend voice to the short sentences.

This is a very real and relatable story. Set in New York City, it tells what it’s like when a beloved dog gets spooked and runs off, and the worry and efforts its family goes through in hope of bringing it home. Besides describing the family’s work to make and post fliers and conduct searches, it shows how the whole neighborhood community came together to help. Spoiler alert: after being missing for two nights and three days, there is indeed a happy ending, and a celebration including all those who cared. I particularly like the people in these illustrations: though drawn with a somewhat cartoonish style, they each include details that give them personality, making them seem very real and believable.

It’s a compilation of short stories, all with the same main characters. Each story focuses on introducing some “big word,” giving it context, along with a little side note actually defining it. The final story is one that incorporates all five of the words introduced in the previous stories. I wouldn’t say the stories show extreme literary merit, but they do the job they are setting out to do: introducing new vocabulary words within a context that goes beyond a plain definition.

I’m generally a fan of Kathleen Krull’s work anyway, and this one didn’t disappoint. She has a way of writing biographies in a very approachable manner, including lots of information while really just telling a story. I think this book is very timely these days, too, as it shares the story of someone on the forefront of the movement to empower women, and it also brings out the themes of righting the wrongs we see in our society. My whole life I’ve heard of the New Deal in conjunction with FDR, but this book showed me it wasn’t all his idea; he just agreed to back the ideas of Frances Perkins.

It’s a beautifully illustrated poem celebrating the seasons through color. Beginning with Spring, it proceeds through the seasons, focusing on a specific color attached to each season, partnered with the consistency of green throughout the year (yellow on green for spring, blue on green for summer, brown on green for autumn and white on green for winter). Between each season the text pauses for a two-page wordless spread with clues to what season comes next, offering readers an opportunity to make predictions. The illustrations are gorgeous!

I’m not saying it’s super strong on plot. It basically tells of a small group of kids who decide to fix up a derelict clock tower. But the language is fun, full of sound effects and rhyme and rhythm. And the illustrations are beautiful, showing the transformation through a lot of different perspectives. And I like that it instills in kids that notion of putting for the effort to fix problems in our community by pitching in with others. It kind of implies that three kids finished the whole job in one day by 5 o’clock quitting time, which could never really happen, but oh well. I liked it.

As beginning readers go, it’s got the repetition and rhyme that helps to make it predictable for young readers. It’s no so much a story as a list of different types of bug behavior. The cuteness of the illustrations add appeal as well as adding meaning to the limited text. For kids who get intrigued and want to know more about bug behaviors, there’s a list of facts in the back for stronger readers to read aloud with the emergent reader.

The only good things I have to say about this book are that it has a sturdy binding, and that kids like Spiderman. Other than that, I find nothing else to recommend it. I know they are making an effort to control the vocabulary as a beginning reader, and they do include repetition that might be helpful, but the language is much too stilted. We’ve learned over the years through the works of countless authors that it is possible to limit the vocabulary while still including a natural flow and rhythm to the language. We need not feed our young readers examples of poor writing.

It’s a little fish’s first day of school, and the simple text (limited to a sentence or two per page, in a large non-intimidating font) manages to capture the mix of excitement and anxiety that can hit a student on such a day. Though the text is simple, it manages to incorporate the rhythm and rhyme and repetition that are so helpful to emergent readers.

It’s got repetition and rhyme and rhythm, as good beginning readers should, along with a good story captured in the simple text. It tells of the anxieties and excitement that go along with a big competition, as well as offering a suggestion on dealing with those anxieties (close your eyes, deep breath, count to ten). And it reminds readers that coming in second is worthy of celebrating, too.

The real strength in this book lies in its beautiful full-color photos of children at school all around the world. The text is simple: one chief sentence on each two page spread, as well as captions under two or three photos, describing how that sentence applies in different parts of the world. The theme of the text is that of the commonalities of school experiences for children all around the world, while the photos highlight both similarities and differences. There is a world map in the back with all the countries mentioned in the book highlighted.

It’s the story of two paper mice who after being cut out are tucked into some books and put away, but after dark they come out for adventures. The book ends when they crawl back into their books just before daylight. It’s a cute enough book, but really just another incarnation of a story that has been told repeatedly before.

It’s the 25th Anniversary Edition of a book I’ve never heard of. The artwork is beautiful and intriguing and always a bit strange. Each illustration is accompanied by an incomplete caption (“If mice were hair…. If worms had wheels…. If leaves were fish…”). It’s a celebration of imagination, and could be used it a variety of ways including art prompts, writing prompts, conversation starters, etc.). Suitable for all ages.