Star Wolf

This book manages to do something I appreciate but often fail to find: though it is the 6th book in a series, it stands on its own two feet, as a satisfying story itself. It has a clear beginning, middle and end of its own, and the author offers enough backstory explanation woven into this one that as a reader who has not read the rest of the series, I was able to enjoy this one just fine; I could tell these characters had had previous adventures and relationships, and reading this one gives me the hook to want to go read those others, but I did not feel like I was wandering through this story blindfolded. It opens as a slapdash “pack” of wolves, bears, and an owl find themselves compelled to leave their homeland and brave crossing a dangerous ice bridge into the unknown, as their only hope of survival. It tells of the dangers they face throughout their journey, some from nature itself, some from an enemy pack on their trail. It also tells of the friendships and discoveries made along the way.

Kaytek the Wizard

I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve written a book review for a book I didn’t finish. I tried. I forced my way through 100 pages to give it a fair shot and see if it was going to finally get better. But I gave up. It’s slow, and rambling, and boring, with nothing offered to make the reader care about the characters or what is happening. In reading the translator’s afterword, I learned that it was originally published in the 1930s in Poland, as a serial, at a time when little was available in the way of stories written for children. This edition does not succeed in bridging the cultural gap between 1930s Poland and 2000s America. I don’t know of any child who will stick with this book past the first 10-20 pages. When I read in the afterword that, “We shall also never know if the story ever had an ending,” I thought I could never justify asking a child to slog through something that was never even going to come to conclusion. What’s the point?

Battle of the Bots

It’s a book you only want to buy if you already have, or intend to purchase, the first two books, as this is the last part of a trilogy, and it doesn’t really work as a stand-alone story. It does offer a blurb on the back of the book directing readers who are unfamiliar with the previous books to a website where they can get filled in, as well as to additional extension activities and games. While I appreciate the bonus of offering the book/tech connection, I would rather the story didn’t depend on readers having access to the tech piece in order to make sense of the book. Not all students have easy access to technology, and some who do might not read the back to know about it. It would have been nice if the book did a better job of providing the necessary background bits within its covers, either with a prologue, or extra explanations/reminders woven into the main body of the text. Students aren’t always careful about making sure to read series books in order, and this one really needs to be. It picks up after some sort of previous disaster has left a high-tech town full suspicion toward their many robots, and has left a young boy so desperate to bring his parents back from some sort of digital trap that he’s willing to break the diabolical bad guy out of prison and work with him because he’s the only one who has the power to bring his parents back. You can imagine how that works out. Never trust the villain when he says he’s changed.

The Homework Strike

It’s a sequel the The 14 Fibs of Gregory K., but it works well as a stand-alone story. I haven’t read the first book, and there were just some hints in this one that made me suspect there was more that had gone before, but no holes that left me confused. It tells a story that will be dear to many students’ hearts: a seventh-grade boy who is feeling overwhelmed by the amount of time he must spend on homework, and the personal pursuits he’s missing out on, decides to take on the system in protest. I really liked that the characters all seemed believable, and his journey was not entirely smooth. The ending was satisfying without being unbelievable.

La migration de la morsa

I am using one blurb to share about three ABDO Kids books, as they all come from the same publisher and author, and they share several characteristics.  They have a large format with full color photos that dominate each two-page spread so that they are visually appealing.  The text to accompany each photo is limited to a few sentences in a large font, so as to not be overwhelming for young readers, yet the information is not weak.  The text is simple and straightforward.  The topics are ones of interest to small children.  The binding is sturdy.

Caballo percheron

I am using one blurb to share about three ABDO Kids books, as they all come from the same publisher and author, and they share several characteristics.  They have a large format with full color photos that dominate each two-page spread so that they are visually appealing.  The text to accompany each photo is limited to a few sentences in a large font, so as to not be overwhelming for young readers, yet the information is not weak.  The text is simple and straightforward.  The topics are ones of interest to small children.  The binding is sturdy.

Como se hace un lápiz de color?

I am using one blurb to share about three ABDO Kids books, as they all come from the same publisher and author, and they share several characteristics.  They have a large format with full color photos that dominate each two-page spread so that they are visually appealing.  The text to accompany each photo is limited to a few sentences in a large font, so as to not be overwhelming for young readers, yet the information is not weak.  The text is simple and straightforward.  The topics are ones of interest to small children.  The binding is sturdy.

Thousand-Mile Fliers and Other Amazing Migrators

Accessible text, but not weak on information, this book provides solid information on four animals known for their migration patterns (Wildebeests, Monarch Butterflies, Leatherback Sea Turtles, and Arctic Terns).  Each chapter also offers a “Compare It” page, sharing information about lesser-known migrators.   Color photographs and highlighted captions are used throughout to support the text and add visual appeal.  It’s got all your basic non-fiction text features, and packs in solid information without being overwhelming or dry.  Did you know that Arctic Terns migrate all the way from one pole to the other and back again every year?!

Dreams and What They Mean

It’s a bit weak on substance, but then it would be, given that there’s no real scientific understanding of dreams, other than knowing that everyone has them and they seem to be important to brain functioning.  The book shares some of the ancient beliefs different cultures held about dreams, dream theories developed by famous psychologists 100 years ago or more, and some common themes that seem to pop up in many people’s dreams with theories about what they may signify.  It offers an idea for creating a dream journal to help readers remember and ponder their dreams.  The basic take-away from the book is that it’s fun to think about and everyone can decide for themselves what they think their own dreams might mean to them.

The Science of Snot and Phlegm: the slimy truth about breathing

Well, any kid who got really excited by the snot in the title may end up being a bit disappointed, as the text is not quite as slimy as it claims to be.  But the science is there, and well-explained to cover a wide range of things related to breathing, from snoring, to asthma, to assorted diseases.  The cartoonish illustrations are engaging, and the diagrams help explain the text, and the information is broken up into small enough blurbs to keep it from being too dry and overwhelming, even if it’s not quite as slimy as one might have hoped.  And it’s got a good sturdy binding, too.

How It Works: pictures and answers for the curious mind

I like this book.  I think it encourages kids to be careful observers who look closely at the world around them.  There is actually very limited explanatory text in this book.  Most of the information is conveyed through simple, yet detailed diagrams.  The topics covered are everyday objects with which students are already familiar, and of which most would have opportunities to examine close up in person as they study the book.  Obviously the information is not in-depth, but basic scientific principles are illustrated through the workings of these everyday objects such as flashlights and toasters and paper airplanes and toilets, etc. It’s a book that invites careful study as one really looks at the pictures, and perhaps then really looks at the things around us.

How Circuits Work

It’s a bit dense and dry for many students to read it by choice, though I guess that really curious future electrical engineer might.  The information is sound, and fairly clearly stated, with diagrams and analogies and references to common everyday examples to help illustrate the principles involved.  Probably best suited to the middle school level.

That’s Not Fair! Getting to know your rights and freedoms

It’s not something kids are going to choose to read on their own, but it could be useful to teachers for civics lessons.  It’s a series of short stories set in an imaginary town where the city council keeps setting laws rather hastily, without considering all the implications of their decisions.  As ramifications arise, they are required to consider why certain rights must be maintained.  It may be a bit pedantic, but the scenarios are such that they illustrate rather significant civic principles in terms students can relate to.

Guatemala

It’s obviously written as an early-reader non-fiction, as the text is rather stilted and the information rather shallow.  The part I found a bit jarring was the bits in the “Good to Know” blurbs that rather disjointedly referenced the United States:  when discussing the flag of Guatemala, and the quetzal that is depicted upon it as the national bird, they add a sentence stating that the Eagle is the national bird of the United States;  when describing the many volcanoes that make up the terrain of Guatemala, the blurb tosses in that, “There are volcanoes in the United States too.  Most of them are in Hawaii and Alaska.”  I am guessing that this is somehow intended to build connections between American readers and the country they are reading about, but it felt out of place and unnecessary and disruptive to learning about Guatemala, the topic of the book.  Wouldn’t it be more useful to leave it to the readers to build their own connections?

Flying Creepy Crawlers

A solid choice for those readers who enjoy both bugs and random facts.  It’s illustrated with a combination of color photos and cartoon-like drawings.  It’s organized by type of insect, with brief blurbs of interesting info.  Accessible for those kids who like to turn to a page randomly and read about something that caught their eye, without being overwhelmed by the need to delve into a long sequential narrative.

Let ‘er Buck! George Fletcher, the People’s Champion

Boy howdy, this book is full of cowboy lingo (properly defined in a specialized glossary), as it tells the story of a black cowboy from Pendleton, OR, who wowed the crowds even while facing the prejudices of his day.  It’s a picture book biography that culminates with the bucking bronco competition of the 1911 Pendleton Round-Up.  After the first Native American competitor disqualified himself on a tricky ride, and the white competitor road an exciting ride where some spectators saw a disqualification, but the judges said they didn’t, George was the third and final competitor.  His spectacular ride had the crowd of 15,000 spectators roaring their approval.  But when the judges announced the white competitor as first place winner, and George as second place, the crowd went silent before erupting into boos.  Though the judges decision was final, the local lawman snatched George’s hat off his head, cut it up into pieces and started selling off pieces to the crowd at $5 each, and in the end they collected more money for George than the value of the official prize, and George was declared the People’s Champion.  The story is well-told, accompanied by oil paint illustrations, and several pages of further information are offered in the back, to fill out the biographies of the main characters, and to share the difficulties of doing research about a time when not many records were kept on ordinary folks.  A good choice.

Itch! Everything you didn’t want to know about what makes you scratch

I chose this book based on the title and the appealing cover, and then when I did a quick flip through the pages, I worried that, at 70 pages, it was too long, with too much too much text per page for elementary students to stick with.  But then I started reading, and decided it’s a good choice after all.  Though there is a lot of text per page, it is accompanied by engaging cartoon like illustrations to draw the reader in, and it is written in a very personable voice that makes it feel like the author is just chatting with the reader.  It is accessible and interesting, and I ended up finishing it all in one sitting before going to bed, even though I didn’t think I was originally going to be that interested.  Besides being interesting, it’s actually relevant to things students encounter in their personal lives: mosquito bites, lice, athlete’s foot, poison ivy…

Our Moon: new discoveries about earth’s closest companion

A good, thorough, look at the research being done about our Moon.  It begins with the 1969 moon landing, takes a brief dip into ancient theories and myths, and then continues on through the information gained from the Apollo missions and on through current studies being investigated, before going on to speculate about future studies and the prediction that humans will return to the moon within the next 50 years.  The text is accompanied by beautiful photos and artists’ renderings and diagrams.  My one critique for the layout would be that in more than one place two-page sidebars interrupt the main flow of the text, so that a reader finishes one page mid-sentences, has to skip ahead two pages to continue and then backtrack so as to not miss out on the other information.  It seems to me that could have been better planned/organized.  As much as I liked the book, I am at a K-4 school, and I believe the information is a bit too dense for my age group.  I would really recommend this for a middle school or high school library.

Quizás Algo Hermoso: como el arte transformo un barrio

It’s a beautiful story, beautifully illustrated.  Inspired by a true story of the transformation of San Diego’s East Village, the story begins with a little girl who likes to paint and color and draw:  the opening page is a rather dark, very gray drawing of an urban neighborhood, with the one bright spot on the page coming from a peek into the little girl’s bedroom window, hung with her artwork.  On her way to and from school in this rather gray neighborhood, we see her passing out her bright, colorful drawings as gifts to those she passes by, and she tapes one to the side of a building.  Then one day she meets an artist studying the picture she hung upon the wall.  They introduce themselves, he shares his brushes and paint, and together they begin painting a mural.  As they work, more and more neighbors come to join in and the project grows until the whole neighborhood is beautiful.  Throughout the story, the tone of the illustrations gradually change, adding more and more color, until the final page is full of color, with a lone gray building on the far edge of the page, inviting the reader to imagine to the project going on and on.

10 Cosas que Puedes Hacer para Reducir, Reciclar y Reutilizar

This really has quite a substantial amount of information for a Rookie Reader.  Each two-page spread is dedicated to another idea for practical things individuals can do to help keep the planet clean.  It begins with a page dedicated to “invisible” garbage, encouraging kids to walk or ride bikes to places nearby to avoid contributing to air pollution and taking showers instead of baths to avoid wasting water.  It goes on to suggest growing one’s own food, composting, using reusable containers, donating things you’ve finished with, recycling, etc.  It ends by sharing some real-life stories about ways some creative things others have done to get their communities involved in this effort.

The Undefeated

This is a beautiful and inspiring book.  The poem is a celebration of triumphs.  Even as it discusses atrocities in our history, it honors those who survived those atrocities, as well as those who didn’t.  The illustrations are stunning, full of humanity.  The text of the poem, combined with the illustrations, evokes emotion and sparks curiosity. In the back of the book are informational pages, sharing names and brief biographical blurbs of those depicted, as well as short explanations for various historical moments mentioned in the poem.  It is a book to springboard readers into further explorations.

Moonshot: the flight of Apollo 11

What a beautiful book to celebrate one of humanity’s great scientific achievements.  The end pages at the beginning and end of the book provide just-the-facts context, with diagrams, sequences of events, data, and further information about America’s first trip to the moon.  In between, the story is told.  The text is poetic, and the illustrations help to convey the wonder and humanity of this shared experience to readers who are too young to have shared in it themselves.  A great book to inspire future scientists.

The Town of Turtle

It’s a bit of an odd book.  It its way, it is a book of triumphing over loneliness, I guess.  It tells about a lonely turtle who knows only his own shadow, but decides one day to crawl out of his shell and make renovations to it.  What starts out as a new paint job leads to building a deck with a fireplace, and then planting a garden with a pond, and eventually moving on to building an entire town on the back of his shell.  This draws a whole community of other critters who decide to move in and Turtle isn’t lonely anymore.  The artwork is aiming for child-like, and is really quite successful at that, but the problem with children’s artwork is that it’s often difficult to see what they are actually trying to convey, and in that regard it failed to serve the telling of the story, I thought.

Genius Optical Inventions: from the x-ray to the telescope

It’s fine, but not as good as I hoped it would be.  For one thing, since it tells me that the telescope came first, shouldn’t the subtitle be “from the telescope to the x-ray”?  The information is brief blurbs about assorted human inventions related to the ways we see, organized by topic, and roughly chronologically.  The accompanying illustrations are cartoonish.  There were a few confusing bits:  each two-page spread, dedicated to a particular topic, has some kind of connect-the-dots trail running through the illustrations, and it took me a few pages to figure that indicates the reading path if you want the information chronologically; if you read following the typical left-to-right, top-to-bottom order, it sometimes comes off a bit disjointed.  There are a few times the illustrations seem a bit disconnected too:  next to the blurb describing the first x-ray, in 1895, as one the inventor took of his wife’s hand, the illustration shows a chest x-ray being taken of a woman wearing shorts? In 1895? Really?