Simple in formatting and color choices, the series Buddy Books First Biographies by Abdo Publishing offers Walt Disney as one of seven American who might be of interest to children.  Name recognition alone will probably carry children over the bland color pallet of stark white with minimalistic blue and red accents.  Maps of the U.S. are helpful to give student perspective of places where Disney lived.  Pictures are both black and white as well as color, some of which take up a full page.  Large simple font make this the classic 2nd grade biography book.  An additional purchase at best.  Could be purchased for ELL students at upper grades because the name recognition will draw interest.

Secret Saturdays takes place in the Red Hook Projects of Brooklyn,  New York,  the home neighborhood of the author, Torrey Maldonado.  His intimate familiarity with the location resonates throughout the book.  The language of the book  has a genuine, honest quality that will appeal to readers looking to understanding of the pressures of teenagers growing  up and the challenge of maintaining a friendship when trust is broken.

The main character, Justin, is best friends with the coolest guy in school, Sean.  Sean the Man is mad popular with his ability to rap the best  “dissing”.  The best disser is king of the hill and is respected and not hassled.  Sean and Justin share a talent for rapping as a way to express feelings and ideas.  But their friendship is tested as Sean hides where he goes on Saturdays, which is to visit his father in jail.

Maldonado’s language choice is true to the setting of the book and the age of the characters.  Even though the age of the boys is 12, the voice will ring true to older students.  It is lively and colorful, interspersed with rapping and jive talk.  The desire to be successful in school and to have a close relationship with their moms is an uplifting aspect to the book. Introspective dialogue about the  difficulty for young men to be emotionally sensitive gives the book a dimension beyond the story line.

Middle school and high school students will relate to the language of this book  as well as a  compassion for the challenges that face young people today.  Recommended for middle and high school and public libraries.

Ethan Zohn and David Rosenburg have an amazing book series on their hands if they continue the journey to other countries in Soccer World.  Soccer is a world-wide sport that can open conversations to learn about a country’s culture.Rosenburg’s beautifully formatted, full color cartoon-like drawings work very well with Zohn’s 1st person narrative as he takes the reader on a visit to South Africa.  Both make this non-fiction text much more interesting than the standard non-fiction texts.   Beginning with the flight, readers’s arrive with Ethan in South Africa.  Chapter by chapter they see people, places, geography and animal life.  Step by step art and science projects draw more interest into the country.  Every chapter also has words2know which are then in bold when used in context.  80% country study to 20% soccer, this book will sell itself to soccer lovers who will find themselves reading for pleasure while learning about the country at the same time.  The only downfall is that chapters are only numbered in the table of contents.  In the text itself, numbers are not used – only the chapter title runs across the top of the right hand page in the header.  With a portion of every book sale going to Zohn’s Grass Roots Soccer Organization and to the Craig Willinger Foundation, which works like the Make-a Wish organization, this book will be an excellent addition to any school  or public library.

First the bad news.  There are ugly diseases, from Ebola virus to bubonic plague, still lurking in many parts of the world.  The good news is that the hard work of “disease detectives” can keep most of us safe from microbial invasion most of the time.   But don’t expect to be reading lists of facts and studying graphs and charts in this book.  Rather, you’ll read of the race against death in the middle of winter that was the first Iditarod sled dog race.  Or the chilling tale of a Zaire school teacher whose night sweats and rash were the beginning of a horrifying death by Ebola virus. 

Whether this book is used for reference, health class instruction, as a guide to a career in science, or just to read, it has riviting stories.  But be warned, the descriptions of the diseases are graphic, and there is a text box that tells exactly how to prevent HIV infection.  Though young readers would love the Iditarod story, the HIV information, deatils of bubonic plague, Ebola virus, the black death, and other diseases are frightening.  But from the introduction, with homeless men turning blue on the streets of New York, to the chapter on bioterrorism, Outbreak is never dull.

This short biography tells the story of Stephenie Meyer, the shy Arizona housewife who wrote Twilight and became an international celebrity author in a matter of months.  Meyer’s life is a great example for kids.  Her parents read to their children.  She worked hard, got good grades in school, and earned a scholarship to Brigham Young University.  While there, she read lots and lots of books and earned a degree in English with an emphasis on literature.

From writing the books to making the movies, this biography gives Twilight  fans a look into the author’s life, thoughts, and ideas.  The most gratifying part of her whole experience, Meyer says, is that her books are helping so many young readers discover that reading is fun.

From the Xtreme Sports  series, this book is all about base jumping. The book discusses BASE jumping. BASE stands for the places where a person may jump (building, antenna, span or earth). The book then goes into detail about the four places to jump with accompanying pictures of each place. The book also discusses the history, gear, worldwide jumps and the discussion of whether it is a sport or a stunt. The book has nice photographs, easy to read text and a nice layout. The giant red headings are interesting. All in all a decent book.

From the Blastoff! Readers series, this book is from Learning About the Earth series and focuses on coral reefs. The book explains what coral reefs are, how they are built, the types of reefs and about them being alive. The book also has a glossary, learn more and index at the end. This book has bright, vibrant pictures. I really like these Blastoff! Readers books. I always feel they have high quality photos, nice thick pages and are written well. This is another good one.

Loxton is the editor of a children’s science magazine, The Skeptic. Although I’ve never heard of nor seen  this magazine, this book, Evolution, has caused me to want to search out this magazine and read more articles written by Loxton.  His writing style makes this book and this subject easy to understand.  Every adult whose gone through school is familiar with Charles Darwin and ‘the survival of the fittest’.  But Loxton not only explains how Darwin came up with this theory(or decided to borrow), but compares it side-by-side with everyday common, familiar creatures so that we can apply it to our lives.  With each turn of the page comes another clarifying bit of information, an answer to a question.  All schools should have this book in their library so that children can understand how things are always changing.

This story is almost pun-ishment to read. The characters are tempra painted punctuation marks:

Penny on the school safety patrol is a period, Elsie the cheerleader is an exclamation mark, and Quentin is a question mark.

Some schools have Spelling Bees, but this school has a punctuation bee/contest. The students who uses his own punctuation mark correctly the most times will be the winner.

Could be a fun book to share with a class using a document camera for an introduction or a review of end punctuation marks.

Multi-layered cut paper pictures help give examples of the various rules for making plural words, from singular words –

” One snake pushes a block.

Three snakes push three blocks.”  (‘s’ unlined)

Graphic examples of 8 plural forms:

singular noun plus the letter -s,

add -es when nouns end in -ch, -sh, -x, or -z…

vowel +y add -s,

consonant + y, change y to i and add -es,

words ending in -o,

words ending in -f or -fe,

rule breakers.