What is love? How do you show love? The main character makes small hearts and gives them away after completing acts of kindness. The character uses their senses to describe love. Love feels like a gentle hand to lift you up if you fall down. Love tastes like warm cookies we take to the neighbors. The diorama illustrations are colorful and help carry the story. Many small acts of kindness are demonstrated through the words and collage illustrations of this book.

Ladybug Launch is inspired by a true story of the author’s experience in the project of sending ladybugs to space. Two stories run parallel to each other throughout the book. Natalia, a young girl in Chile, wonders if she could be the first in her family to attend university. Luna, a chinita (ladybug), longs to go to space. One day Luna finds her attending school with Natalia when Natalia’s class is creating an experiment for space. If humans can live in space, they would need to grow food. If they grow food, they will need something to combat the pests. This book is fictional with an anthropomorphized ladybug, but does include an author’s note at the end recounting her real experience with this experiment. Spanish words are included throughout the story and a glossary is included at the back as well as websites for further information about ladybugs and NASA.

While out for a walk, Louise throws a stick for Milo. Milo brings it back again and again because it makes Louise happy. One time Louise pretends to throw the stick and Milo thinks she has thrown it really far, so Milo goes in search of it. He searches the neighborhood, puts up posters and eventually sets off around the world looking for stick. He finds a lot of different sticks, but not Louise’s stick. Through the illustrations you can see that at the same time, Louise is searching for Milo. Pay careful attention to the bright, detailed illustrations to see the emotions of Milo and Louise as well as details of the story.

Ruby Rene knows a lot of things and she desperately wants to share them, but that leads to her getting in trouble at school for talking too much. Her dad gives her a journal to write her thoughts in, but then she is not paying attention in class. Eventually the principal helps her come up with a way to foster her curiosity and share her knowledge with others.

The text of the book is complemented by colorful illustrations and the incorporation of speech and thought bubbles. A wonderful story about those who just can’t contain themselves with their need to share and a way that it can be turned into a positive instead a negative trait.

A young boy gets ready for bed and in the illustrations you can see a dinosaur looking back at him in the mirror. After his mom turns out his light, he hears a sound. He is not afraid of the sound because he is a dinosaur. He is not afraid of the shadow, a spider, a monster, or the weather because nothing scares a dinosaur.

This Ready to Read Level One book features large, easy to read type, rhyming text and one to two sentences on the page. The illustrations are colorful and cartoonish bring humor to a book about being afraid of things at night. A humorous story to be read aloud or for those learning to read.

Written like lyrics with rhythm and rhythm, Bridges Instead of Walls is Mavis Staples memoir of growing up in a musical family and going on to successful performance career. Each part of Mavis’s life is treated as almost its own song, reinforcing the musical theme in her life. The Staple Singers, Mavis’s family’s performing group started as gospel group and eventually expanded to add message music that supported the Civil Rights Movement.

Mavis sees her life as a series of bridges, many of which were built from the music in her life. Born in Chicago to a poor black family that moved north during the Great Migration, Mavis met Elvis, Dr King, and Prince; she sang for presidents and princes; and earned accolades and awards for her music. Recommended for collections looking for books on music in the Civil Rights Movement.

The book includes a recommended listening list, recommended viewing list, and a timeline.

Veena loves to be in the kitchen when the women are making roti. Veena practices making the roti and finally gets the hang of it. Then her world changes and the Partition of India occurs and her family leaves their home. They end up in a migrant shelter, where she is given a roti that was like nothing she had tasted before, it was red and hard to swallow. Veena decides that she needs to do something to help at the kitchen and makes red roti.

The end of the story includes a glossary, an author’s note and historical context. The story is inspired by the author’s grandparents’ journey during the Partition of India. The historical context explains what the partition was and is important for those who may not know this piece of history.

After seeing a beautiful web, Kiara is inspired to make her own web. It was not as easy as it seemed and her first webs were not works of art. Finally she created a masterpiece when a squirrel ran through her web, destroying her work. Each web Kiara created were ruined by others not paying attention. Kiara meets another spider, Orb, and they work together to create something beautiful until Orb gets hungry and eats the web. Frustrated Kiara runs away destroying Paws, the squirrel’s, sculpture. Kiara helps Paws and learns that creating is just as important, if not more than the finished product.

The digitally created illustrations feature expressive characters, intricate webs, and designs to demonstrate varying textures.

This book would be great for discussing frustration when creating something and for how to respond when you accidentally ruin someone’s creation.

Aerospace engineers use math and physics to design airplanes and spacecraft.

This book is a Blastoff Reader from the Careers in STEM series. There are 2-3 sentences per page and uses many text features such as bold words, table of contents, photographs and captions. The glossary is needed as there are many words that will be new to readers, such as internships and physics. This book explains what an aerospace engineer is, does, and how to become an aerospace engineer. The books in this series introduce readers to careers they may not be familiar with.

This book is a Blastoff Reader from the Careers in STEM series.This series for beginning readers focuses on jobs in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields. There are 2-3 sentences per page and uses many text features such as bold words, table of contents, glossary, photographs and captions. Information about a famous mechanical engineer is included.This book explains what a mechanical engineer is, does, and how to become a mechanical engineer. The books in this series introduce readers to careers they may not be familiar with.

Year after year as we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month, we hear about the same heroes; MLK, Ruby Bridges, Rosa Parks. There are many other Americans who stepped up and made a difference during the Civil Rights Movement. This book focuses on twelve women who through their actions furthered the fight for equality and justice during the Civil Rights Movement.

In the book, you will hear about; Ella Baker, Ruby Bridges, Claudette Colvin, Dorothy Cotton, Fannie Lou Hamer, Coretta Scott King, Diane Nash, Rosa Parks, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Gloria Richardson, Jo Ann Robinson, and Sheyann Webb. The twelve women each have a page long biography detailing their work, their struggles, and their successes. Each biography is concise yet comprehensive enough to paint a picture for the reader.

Recommended for elementary libraries.