This is a fun book for kids with wild imaginations. The illustrations of the works to an Irish sounding song are wonderful.  It’s a short read, good for young children.

This beginning chapter book is about Posey, a little girl who is days away from starting first grade. Being a little scared and unsure about this transition to being a big girl, she thinks it will be ok if she just could wear her favorite tutu even though it has some rips and tears. Posey just can’t understand why tutus can’t be worn at school. When Posey’s grandpa and her run into her teacher at the store, a plan is set in motion. In order to make all the kids not feel scared, a parade is planned the first day and the kids can wear their favorite clothes. Instead of being sad and scared, Posey barely blinks an eye at the kiss and go sign and runs to meet her teacher and class. This is a cute first chapter book that little girls will like. There are also discussion questions at the end, which I thought was a nice added touch.

From the Blastoff! Readers, this book is all about space shuttles. It teaches students what space shuttles are, how space shuttles launch, orbit and land. There is also a glossary, to learn more and index. The book has a very nice layout with bright colored pages, great photographs and accompanying text with bolded words that are found in the glossary, as well.  All in all, a nice nonfiction book that young readers will enjoy and be able to learn a lot about space shuttles.

This is the second book in The Buddy Files series. It was a fun little chapter book about a dog, Buddy that is trying to solve two mysteries. First, he is still trying to find his first family and figure out what happened to them, making him end up at the pound. (This was the premises for the first book.) In this book, along with still trying to solve the mystery of his missing family, he is presented with a more urgent mystery. Two pugs were switched at the dog park and he is the only one (with a little help from his dog friends) who can solve this mystery and fix the situation. This is a fun series for younger grades that are quick and fairly easy to read with a little adventure and mystery.

This book is a lot like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but from a middle school girls point of view.  There is alot of drama-such as one would find in middle school.  I think the kids will enjoy reading this book.

I didn’t like the “OMG” through out the book-it offends me.

This is a fun and different version of a well known story.  The art is colorful and interesting.  This duckling has fun encounters not only with other animals but humans as well.  The African setting lends a new flavor to this old story.  It’s fun.

This book is written as a rhyme.  it is a wonderful walk through history.  I enjoyed reading the family letters as they went back and forth across the country by different means as time moved forward.

I think young readers would find this interesting, especially when you think about today’s instant communication.  It’s a fun way to study our history.

Jane in Bloom, is the story of a twelve year old girl, Jane, who loses her sister Lizzie to anorexia on the day of her twelfth birthday. This novel does not follow the typical story line of a battle with anorexia, instead it focuses on Jane and how she comes to realize that she cannot stop living because Lizzie did. The novel follows Jane as she starts to grow up, find friends, and maybe even a potential boyfriend! Jane had always felt as if she was only second best compared to her sister and when her mom leaves to “take a break” Jane thinks she was right all along. Jane and her father are on their own for the summer and when he leaves her for a business trip Ethel, his retired secretary, stays with Jane and helps her cope with her sister’s death. Ethel not only helps Jane learn to grieve and to understand her pain but move past it.  This novel explores the other side of things, what it is like to have a sibling with anorexia and how to move on.

This novel is a great pick for someone who does not want a love story or one filled with pain and sadness, but one with a touch of reality. Jane in Bloom is a fast read that is easy to get into, anyone who wants to read about the other side of anorexia should read this book!

The book Positively is a gripping story of a 13 year-old girl who is HIV positive.  Emerson Price (Emmy) has been HIV positive ever since she was born.  The book opens with Emmy coping with the recent death of her mother who was also HIV positive.   The character of Emmy is well-developed and is an honest look into the life of a teenager afflicted with HIV.  In the difficult months following her mother’s death, Emmy often feels like there is no point to live and to take her daily meds.  She has just lost the most important person in her life and is forced to live with her dad and her step-mom.  When her dad forces her to attend a camp for girls who are HIV positive she feels utterly betrayed like he is just getting rid of her for the summer.  She soon makes friends at Camp Positive and learns that she is not alone.  Emmy comes to the realization that her life is worth living when one of her new friends leaves camp unexpectedly because of health concerns. This is a valuable addition to any high school or junior high library collection because it discusses a complex issue with very realistic, human fears.

I was confused in the beginning as to what was happening.  I also didn’t understand (as the character Griffin didn’t know) how she was going to make the wishes come true.  I had to work at finishing the book.  I just couldn’t see how it was going to work out.  It didn’t make sense to me.

This book is all about caves. It is an amazing book with lots of information and great photographs. The book starts out discussing these landforms, before talking about the shapes and sizes and the three different types of caves (solution caves, lava tubes and sea caves). It also has additional information boxes, extra facts, important words, web sites and index. This is a great book with a really nice layout, photos and presentation of facts.

From the Life Cycle series, this book follows chickens from eggs to adults. The book starts out by introducing chickens, then discusses the egg, chick and adult stages. The book has a great, colorful layout with simple text that elementary students can easily understand. I really like the large, high quality photographs. A very appealing, nice addition to the farm animal section.

This is a cute book about a little girl who wants to be different.  She wears her hair in a bouffant rather than braids and ponytails.  After all the other girls want bouffant hair.  She is bored with that and decides to wear a gown that she made to school.  Cut story about self expression.

The pictures were great but very Christmasy looking.

This was a great book.  I enjoyed the historic part of immigrants coming and using their skills and talents to help this couontry be a great place.

it is good for children to know about history and the part immigrants play.

When Lynn Vincent dresses everyone stares at her.  Her fashions are ahead of their time. and it makes her weird.  Then she has a chance of a life time, to make it on the IT panel for GILTer GIRL-but disaster strikes and she is crushed.  Until her shoe is discovered.

This is a great story of a girl who is picked on because of her Ideas. But in the end she becomes popular because of her ideas and everyone wants her advice on what to wear.

I highly recommend this excellent chapter book to any student grades 2-8 in terms of content.  It is a rare story that is appropriate for and can appeal to such a wide age range, but this is definitely one of them.  The AR reading level, however, is 6.5.  This book was a pleasure to read with exciting adventure, suspenseful near escapes, tragedy, well-developed characters you care about or love to hate, and humor sprinkled in for good measure.  There were themes of friendship, justice, loyalty, love, perseverance, generosity, determination and duty.  The cover illustration is beautiful with iridescent wings on the pictured dragonflies and there were several black and white sketches by Mr. Hawkes which added additional interest and enjoyment of the story.  The story is set in Europe in the time period just before, during and just after World War II.  References are made throughout the book to war events which are woven into this fictional story.  This book would be a wonderful addition to every elementary school library.

This picture book tells the story of a young boy, Savino, who must quit school to go work with his father in the mines in the early 1900’s. The description of Savino’s first day in the mine, through the eyes of a frightened young boy, are both touching and sad. He relies on his pit pony to help him find his way around the mine and complete his work. When his headlamp goes out, his pony calmly leads him back to his father. Finally, the workers are finished for the day and get their first week ever of holiday. The ponies get a break too and frisk and run when they joyfully reach fresh air at the surface. The illustrations are dark and impressionistic and set the tone well for the dank setting of the mine. A historical note at the end of the book explains that this book is based upon the true stories of an old miner named Savino Calibrese who worked in the Canadian mines around the time this story is set. This book is meaningful as an introduction to our students who are unfamiliar with the lives of miners past and present. It would be a good discussion piece for older students regarding child labor, animal rights and safe labor practices.

I loved this story about two children, Lily and Liam, who visit their grandparents on their farm in the country at Christmastime. As they pull up to the house, they see White Cow in the field and wonder where her donkey companion has gone. Donkey has moved away and Liam thinks that White Cow looks lonely. Liam is concerned and sets out to research cows. He learns that cows are in fact social animals who live in family units and seem to have feelings. Lily is frustrated and just wants to enjoy Christmas traditions with her family. Liam is very determined to buy a cow friend for White Cow and uses his ingenuity to pull it off on Christmas Eve. The climax really comes early the next morning with a lovely surprise. This book is a lovely mix of tender emotions, generosity, kindness, empathy, suspense and true Christmas spirit. There are detailed black and white sketch illustrations of the characters and scenes scattered throughout the book and the cover illustrations are lovely as well. I’m thrilled to add this to our elementary school library and plan to recommend this book to many students who ask for a great story at any time of the year. I used it as a Christmas read-aloud with my 2nd graders during library time and they LOVED it!

I enjoy the Cowgirl Kate books and they make wonderful early readers. The stories are fun and easy to read and understand and the illustrations are darling and colorful. In this story, the horse wants to explore and live in Kate’s house. Kate doesn’t think this is a good idea and when the horse starts messing up the house, she convinces him the barn is the best place for him to live. This will be a nice addition to our AR collection.

Kids love to read superhero adventure books and this one is about a class of superhero kids in training at superhero school. At first they don’t understand why their teacher is spending time on division, fractions and multiplication when what they really want to learn are exciting superhero skills! When all the teachers are suddenly kidnapped by the evil Ice Zombies, the kids must spring into action to save the day. They find those math skills come in handy when they must use them to foil the enemy and rescue the teachers. Turns out the whole adventure is a math quiz and they all earned an A+. After that, superhero school is much more fun and the students finally got to also learn all those exciting skills they had been waiting for. I enjoyed peering at the pictures for crazy monsters in the background and funny details in the illustrations. This would be a great read-aloud to spice up math class as it gives some math problems they class could do together as the story was read.

One of the things I like most about this picture book are the illustrations which are quirky, colorful and fun, depicted from sometimes interesting perspectives. I also appreciated the introduction to opera, with which many young children are unfamiliar or even unaware. In this story, an lovely opera singer, Madame SoSo, has a talented Siamese cat, Alma, who can also sing opera. Madame can no longer hide her kitty’s talent and decides to include her in her next performance. She makes the cat a gown and takes her on the train to Switzerland to join her in the show. Despite some challenges on the way and cold kitty feet at the last minute, Alma braves the stage and steals the show. The audience is enchanted and Alma’s performance changes everything as pets now flock to attend the opera to watch her and Madame SoSo sing. This is a fun read which I think the students will enjoy checking out from our library.

This nonfiction book is all about the rain forest animal, the lemur. Starting with a table of contents of all the chapters, the lemur is identified, explained and photographed. Each set of facing pages are a chapter with facts and great photos. While the book has quite a bit of information, it is presented in a simple way that young readers will understand and enjoy. I enjoyed reading about this mysterious animal. I learned some interesting facts, such as they only live in Madagascar. I really liked the simple layout as well with the white pages and large pictures. At the end, there is also a lemur body map, glossary with accompanying pictures, find out more section and index.

From Scholastic, this book is all about the life cycle of the fascinating sea horse. With wonderful photographs and interesting facts, this is sure to be a hit in elementary libraries. The book starts out explaining what a sea horse is easily explaining their characteristics. It then talks about sea horses courting, babies being born and then growth into adulthood. There is also a glossary, learn more and index. I like that the facts are simply stated but easy to understand. The accompanying photos are beautiful and amazing. This is a great animal nonfiction book.

This lovely biography of Howard Thurman is a graceful and spiritually grounded depiction of an intelligent, determined and talented young man who grew into an inspiration for those who love peace and equality in the 20^th century. I’m glad to know more about Mr. Thurman and am happy to share this biography with our elementary aged students. The illustrations convey the story well with special attention given to facial expressions and object texture. The afterword was also well-written, explaining and analyzing the great and on-going impact of this incredible man upon the American Civil Rights movement and leaders.

This is a unique picture book about a poor mouse who lives under the floor of a castle where a princess and her many cats enjoy a life of luxury and splendor.   The mouse has the idea to bell the cats, with a nod to Aesop’s fables, so that he might know where they were and avoid them to enjoy the amenities of the castle.  In the end after many failed attempts, he befriends the princess and she bells the cats.  I especially enjoyed looking at the illustrations, which are beautifully detailed with rich texture and colors.