Gondra is a young dragon who has a mother from the West, and a father from the East.  Throughout the story, she compares her features to her parents and wonders who she will take after the most as she grows. Gondra is assured by her parents that they no longer need to horde treasure as she is their treasure. Includes interesting and informative author’s note at the end with background information on Eastern and Western dragon mythology. Positive message and delightful illustrations.

This story is like a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. How will you ever be able to get all of the pieces together, especially when the mean character is trying to do the exact same thing.

The ‘boy’ wakes up on an island beach not knowing or remembering anything. Amnesia? He has an inner bully of a subconscious always ready to let him know how dumb and cowardly he is in his choices of action. Let’s put some more pieces of the puzzle together. Let’s try a different color scheme. Let’s go from the gray of the beach to the green of the forest. The bully thinks this is a bad choice. There are monsters in the forest. The boy escapes the monster by climbing a tree. There he saves a baby owl in a torrential rain storm, only to find a tree house. The colors of the puzzle pieces now change from the brown of the tree house to a strong beam of light. The boy decides to find the source of the light. The colors change yet again as the boy leaves the forest and comes to a lighthouse. “He stepped back, starring out of the window at the trees of the Green Wall [forest] lined up outside the lighthouse. What kind of place made refrigerators appear out of thin air? Showed his brother in a puddle? Made a pathway from an owl of leaves? And lured him with a light that had no bulb?” (115) Will these puzzle pieces ever come together to make a whole picture?

The boy tries to make a boat, but it floats away without him. Then three boys come to the island in two real boats. The boy wants to leave the island with them, but they cannot see him. Is he a ghost? More pieces to the puzzle. Is he dead? Finally, someone is here to help him get off of this island. The puzzle is coming together at last. The boy must choose between the easy way of slipping into the afterlife or the hard way of fighting his way back into consciousness to the life and family he is sure is waiting for his return. The bully does not think the boy could or should face the blues of the sea to get to the other distant island where his family waits for him. The boy conquers his fears and “made his own courage.”(240) The boy – Ethan- wakes up in the hospital room to the joy of his father, younger brother, and mother. The boy- Ethan- has faced his demons and survived.

Intermediate elementary readers will enjoy finding out some of the secret “tricks used by filmmakers.” (8) Some are done while the movie is being filmed, while others are added after the filming. “Most film studios had special effects teams by the 1920s.” (15) Some of the effects mentioned are: animatronics, claymation, substitution shots, stop-motion animation, CGI, and use of models.

There are usually six to eight sentences in a combination of two paragraphs per page turn along side photos from twenty big Hollywood movies. Movies like Star Wars, Titanic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mary Poppins, and Jurassic Park III. Lovers of action movies will enjoy this book.

The book closes with the publisher’s web site- Factsurfer.com. Its link to the AMC site is outstanding!

This book will give young readers information about collared lizards, such as: biome, habitat, coloring-camouflage, and diet. The collared lizards appearance is not described, but gained through colored photographs on almost every page.

There are usually three factual sentences for every page turn, in a large font, with glossary words in bold. Pages 14-15 state, “Collared lizards need heat to break down their food. Food that does not break down rots. They stop eating before they hibernate so they do not get sick.”

The book closes with the publisher’s web site – Factsurfer.com, which gives a recap of the book and additional information.

Sid, Axl and Ivan make a midnight run for the theater group, but on the way come upon some creepy events and a strange Taco Bear drive-thru that transports them to another dimension. Their taco order turns into tentacled creatures and the world around them turns soft and goopy. They must team up with grad student, Wendy, to save the world from these creatures. This is a science fiction graphic novel that would appeal to students who like horror. The pictures change from gray to an orange to coincide with events in the story.

There has to be better options available. The opening pages tell about the mail carrier getting stung by icy wind and not letting the cold weather stop him. I’m sure the mail carriers in Florida rarely face such an issue. Later it tells about how the mail carriers sort the mail at the post office before loading it into trucks and their mailbags. Yet I am pretty sure that large urban post offices have different people doing the sorting than the ones making the deliveries, and possibly even different folks loading the trucks. I don’t believe in over-simplifying when writing for small children. Simple, straightforward text is one thing, but simplifying to the point of distorting the facts is not fair to young readers.

It’s a picture book biography of Robert Goddard, the “Father of US Rocketry.” After reading the subtitle, and knowing about the space race of the 1950s and 60s, I was surprised to learn that Mr. Goddard was born in the 1880s. It shares that because of childhood illness he was to sick to attend a regular school, but he pursued his interest in science via at-home science equipment and a subscription to Scientific American. It describes a variety of failed experiments, but demonstrates how he learned from his failures and persisted in new attempts. There was only one line I found confusing: the book refers to his successful rocket of 1926 as “rocket number four,” even though the preceding pages described his first three attempts, and then goes on to include tell us that “year after year, rocket after rocket…each failure taught Robert something new.” The message of years of persisting through failures is undermined when they suggest it was the fourth try that worked.

It’s fine, but it feels like it’s been done before. It’s your basic, “What do the zoo animals do all night?” book. I’m sure none of us will be surprised to know they have a dance party when no one’s looking. It does a decent job of including a bit of rhythm and rhyme. The illustrations are colorful and fun.

Richard’s third grade class at Carver Elementary School has been working on earning a pizza party for perfect line behavior for 16 days now. If they can keep it up for just four more days, Ms. Shelby-Ortiz will provide the class with a pizza party. Then, Ms. Shelby-Ortiz gets sick. Her substitute teacher is the meanest substitute the class can remember ever having. The last time the class had him, he took points away if they did not address him as “Sir”. They are all trying hard to earn the pizza party. But when answering the substitute honestly and truthfully in their writing journals, as opposed to writing what they think the substitute wants to hear, problems develop. The class cut-up tones it down, but not enough in the opinion of the rest of the class. Then Richard forgets his homework at school, he goes back to get it, but the room is already locked, and he cannot find the custodian to unlock the door for him. Will the mean substitute ruin their chance to earn the pizza party by the time Ms. Shelby-Ortiz gets back in three days?

Realistic third grade dilemmas will resonate with young readers.

When ‘inventors’ come to mind I abstractly picture a man, of man of Thomas Edison’s generation. Here is a book with not one, but 15 women inventors stories and more women inventors listed on the front and back end papers! Six of these women are from 2000 to the present, four are from the 1970s to 1999, and the other five are from the earlier 1900s. Three have been on the television show “SHARK TANK“.

These women saw a need and worked to solve it, whether at home or in the workplace from the first wind shield wipers for cars, to Kevlor, to anti-bullying apps, to paper bag folding machines, to lasers for removing cataracts, to hands free baby carriers, to debugging computers, and combating drought.

Here is a book for the equity of women inventors. It is awe inspiring, while at the same time, “I can see myself doing something like that to solve a problem.”

There are eight “contests and organizations that encourage young people to innovate” (94) listed on pages 94-95. Some of these are the ones the young women in this book entered to get their ideas out in front of the world.

It’s got a reasonable amount of information for a beginning reader. When one glances at the table of content, it looks like it’s got about 5-6 chapters, until you look closely and realize 4 of the 6 sections listed refer to the Non-Fiction text features included on the last three pages (More Facts, Glossary, Index, Online Resources). It really just has the two chapters: Bulldozers, which describes the different parts of the machines, and Different Jobs, which describes exactly what it says. It gets points for including a photo of a young woman as the bulldozer operator, and for including details about why the different parts are designed as they are. And it has a sturdy binding.

It’s got some information. It points out different kinds of bus drivers (some drive passengers to work or to school or on tours). It points out their responsibilities for keeping passengers safe, maintaining their buses (though to all bus drivers do that themselves?), and keeping to schedules. But it makes some cheerfully general statements that make me question: the book starts off with a girl getting on a bus for her first time and states that the driver helps her find friends. Really? Or did the driver help her find a seat, and if she happens to make friends with the others nearby, that’s pretty much dependent on luck. Do all drivers drive the same routes daily? Or do they sometimes cover for someone who is sick or take a tour group to a new destination?

This book is completely weak on information. There is nothing that a student is going to learn from this book if they have already spent a whole day in a classroom. It completely over-simplifies the job of teachers. I realize they are trying to keep things simple for early readers, but by spending 24 pages to tell readers things they already know this book just reinforces the belief some struggling readers hold that reading holds no purpose.

Seriously, this book is just encouraging kids to keep junk. When George starts out to help clean up the neighborhood, he ends up deciding he wants to keep everything he found. When the man explains that a collection is one particular kind of thing, and asks George to choose one particular kind of thing to keep and to throw out the rest, George wants to keep it all, so he just arranges it all by color and and calls it a color collection. It’s still junk: a broken mug is still a broken mug, and a single high-heeled shoe still serves him no purpose, and it’s all still all over the living room floor of their apartment; but somehow we’re supposed to be impressed that he turned trash into something “beautiful”?

If it funds are limited, a book more broadly about volcanoes in general and/or a book more generally about Hawaii seem like more sensible options. But if you’ve got a class studying a unit on either volcanoes or Hawaii, and would like a selection that offers more specific information about these particular volcanoes, this is a good choice. It includes a bit of information about the history of the park, the role of volcanoes in creating the Hawaiian islands, general information about volcanoes, as well as specific details about the history and behavior of these particular ones. And it does it all with a format and simplicity of text that makes it suitable for young audiences.

It’s small, compact, simply laid out, with large font and full-page color photos. All these design elements keep it inviting and non-intimidating for young readers. There are just a few sentences per page, each easily understood, and yet it doesn’t feel skimpy on information. It manages to describe the physics of sound waves and vibrations in terms of tangible things with which young students will be familiar (e.g. stating that though sound waves move through the air invisibly, they do so much as ripples in a pond move through the water). All in all, it’s a solid choice to support the science curriculum.

I go down to Las Vegas, Nevada, not to gamble, but to go out into the desert hiking. I have lived where dust storms occur, but have never been in one myself. I have been on a week long bicycle tour in the Rocky Mountains. And I have gone hiking with my sons’ boy scout troop when survival gear is always inspected before leaving the parking lot. All of these play a part in this story. Now every time I think about this book, my eyes get scratchy and itchy.

This book is set in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico. It is the retelling of what should have been a great time at a club geocaching competition by sixth graders on bicycles. It turns out to be a story of survival , as the title suggests, but it is also the tale of how two young people rediscover their lost friendship and why.

When the club’s van gets stuck, Mr. Lee goes for help, while the 6th grade geocaching team stays with Mrs. Sloan and the van. Martin’s need to win this competition has Martin sneaking through Mr. Lee’s brief case to find the coordinates. Jen sees this and follows Martin out into the desert, when no one is looking. Shortly, the dust storm engulfs them. At times, they have no idea where the other one is the dust is so blindingly thick and loud. The dust stings their eyes and skin, fills their ears and noses. The dust is choking. They survive the storm, but will they survive the desert! They are lost. Their bicycles are ruined. They are in an arroyo which will be the path of the flash flood, that follows a dust storm.

Jen has book knowledge and Martin has math on his side. If they work together these two who were once good friends might get out of this alive. They will face coyotes and the coldness of the desert by night, extreme heat without shade and thirst without water by day.

What Jen and Martin did not do is stay put, so searchers could easily find them. They can hear the rescue helicopter, but it can not see or hear them.

What Jen and Martin did do correctly and how they were finally rescued could have all been avoided, but they are back to being friends due to being put to this test. They, also, are doing volunteer hours of community service to help pay back for the hours put into their rescue effort.

I am looking forward to reading the other three books in this series.

After the story there are ‘Survival tips from the New Mexico Search and Rescue Council’, plus a list of the ten bare essentials of wilderness travel.

In this day and age of computers and photo shop here is an amazing true story of how innovative young people can be when they want “to get back at the adults for scolding…” one of them. (29)

Elsie (16 yrs. old) and Frances (9 yrs. old) only wanted to play a prank on their parents. Cameras for the general public were still rare in 1920. Elsie’s artwork was very good. Put the two together and the girls took a photo of Frances with fairies out in the woods of Northern England. It was never intended for anyone else to ever see the photo(s).

Just like today, some people yelled, “Fake,” while others believed. I will compare it to Big Foot photos. You decide which side of the fence you are on.

The book makes me smile and chuckle because it has similar applications to today’s photos of Big Foot and UFOs.

from author’s note: The difference now is that we are trained not to accept automatically but rather to question, and when possible, to investigate on our own to determine the truth. Though the internet is a powerful tool in trying to confirm or deny a suspicious story or photo, it can also spread misinformation just as easily. Having the internet doesn’t mean you can kick back and think less. On the contrary, it forces you to think more.”