A cornucopia of highly informative two page chapters on the history, types, uses, characteristics, processes, and culture surrounding corn.  Does this sound like a less-than-stimulating topic?  Not in the least.  The actual size of primitive Mexican corn cobs 7,000 years ago were about 1 inch long!  Cobs grew larger as the crop was cultivated.  One thousand year old popcorn kernels, when dampened, will still pop!  The annual value of corn crops in the USA is ten times larger than the gold mined in the country.  Along side the fascinating fabulous facts are a myriad of humor filled, cheerful illustrations peppered on each two page spread.  Unfortunately, I was surprised to note the absence of a glossary  or index in the back matter.  (There are sources and credits.)  Still, this little 32 page book has all you need to know about one of the most a’maizing’ food of our times.

What do you get when you cross Miss Congeniality and The Lord of the Flies, and mix it all together with Libba Bray’s unique brand of sardonic wit?  Why, you get Beauty Queens, of course!  When the airplane carrying the 50 contestants of the Miss Teen Dream pageant crashes into a deserted tropical island, only a fraction of the beauties survive.  What ensues is a rich exploration of the female psyche and social world, a biting social satire, and a fast-paced survival tale.  Where Bray succeeds in this novel is in the development of her characters; girls the reader despises on the first page become lovable by the end, and each individual beauty queen develops a distinct personality that jumps off the page.  The treatment of female independence and sexuality is realistic, refreshing, and empowering.  The political satire aspect of the novel is less effective and a little over-the-top, but the humor and characterization of the girls’ social world keeps this book a winner.  Plus, there are sexy pirates, and who can resist sexy pirates?

When a bus-load of whimsical, brightly-colored art supplies arrives at school on picture day, things seem a little hectic at first.  Feathers, buttons, sequins, yarn, pom-poms and more all roll down the stairs, but one key player seems to be missing.  How will the art supplies put themselves together without glue?  The paper-cut out illustrations are fun and bold, and will definitely catch the eye of young readers, but unfortunately the concept of the book comes off as a tad confusing.  The text is choppy, and McDonald can’t seem to decide whether or not to rhyme.  When glue finally makes an appearance at the end and glues the art supplies together, the picture is so cluttered that it will be difficult for young eyes to pick out how all the art supplies came together.  This picture book has a fun idea behind it, but it is unfortunately clumsily executed.  Note: This may be a great book to use in conjunction with a collage craft program.

As grim as it is seemingly inspired by the Grimm brothers, Greder’s stark text and even starker illustrations tell the simple story of an over-protected child.  When her husband is killed in a war, a mother takes her son deep into the woods to create a safe, isolated world for him.  When she dies, the boy carries the bones of his dead mother out into the world in an attempt to find his own fortune.  While the story is powerful and the bleak charcoal illustrations set the tone for the narrative, the audience for this book is unclear.  The text is easy but disturbing, and the scary illustrations make this book more suited to adult and teen lovers of gruesome fairy tales rather than children.  Overall, it is a well done book, but its place in a collection of children’s materials is unclear.

This is a story which needs to be told.  Sarah Emma Edmonds was a spy for the Union during the Civil War.  The Union Army knew her as a man, and she took on a series of roles which crossed both race and gender lines in order to gain information for her side.  The illustrations are slightly impressionistic images of Edmonds in her various roles as well as more generalized frames of the period.  Some may find problems in the thesis of the text.  Jones repeats over and over that Edmonds was pretending to be a man, and in an age of gender politics, it feels strange to not mention even the possibility of a trans or queer identity.  It is understandable to not want to get into this complex topic in a children’s book, but it does seem odd to emphasize the pretense so monotonously.  However, Edmonds’ story is fascinating and should be part of our collective memory of the Civil War.

The raccoons in this picture book have a gentle little life.  Our raccoon child and her mother go through a whole day together from waking up to bedtime.  Short two-line text narrates.  Each page includes one of the following phrases: “Please pick me up, Mama” or, alternately, “Please put me down, Mama.”  Many of the phrases paired with these first lines involve actions a parent and child could do together while reading the book.  This makes it a nice choice for storytime, as a third party could hold the book and read the words, while the parent and child pairings could act out the text.

The illustrations are gentle, but bright, and realistic, in an anthropomorphized-animals kind of way.  The end papers deserve special mention, as the end papers at the beginning of the book are lovely clouds and at the end of the book are stars in a night sky.  In a field of many similar books, this title is exceptionally well executed.

I wondered if this book would be okay for middle school when, in chapter 2, high school student Mclean goes to a drinking party next door.  The remainder of the book was fine, minus a few cuss words sprinkled in.

“What Happened to Goodbye” stars Mclean, a seventeen-year old product of a divorced family.  Since her parents split, Mclean has been shuffled around a lot, never staying at one school long enough to make any strong connections.  In each place that she has lived, she has taken on a different name –Eliza, Beth, Lizbet — each with a different persona.  At last “Mclean” is making real friends, and finding out who she really is.

Dessen writes with realistic dialog and tough real-life situations.

This is a counting down story of a mama bird that becomes increasingly overworked trying to keep her seven hungry babies fed.  The story is full of fun read-aloud sounds and the illustrations are humorous, vibrant and cartoonish.  In the end, when mama bird has finally fed the last baby, her rest is foiled by all the babies being hungry again.  This time, she calls on lounging daddy to help out.  I’m planning to read this at story time for kindergarten, first grade and second grade classes.  I expect that they will be well-entertained by the storyline, the sound effects and silly expressions of the characters.

This children’s abridged version of the original The Call of the Wild remains true enough to the story line without being too intense for the young reader.  Since some of the violent scenes remain, albeit toned down, I would recommend it for more mature 3rd grade readers through 5th grade.  The illustrations are realistic and detailed, serving to bring the story alive and demonstrate the setting.  It is my hope that younger readers will become engaged with this version and graduate to the original classic as they mature.

This is book 3 in the Nathaniel Fludd Beastologist series, of which I am a big fan.  Each book in the series focuses on a mythical beast, this time a Wyvern.  In this story, Nate heads off to Wales to solve a new mystery and restore peace to the land.  Written with humor and edge-of-your seat adventure, these little treasures are fun as read-alouds or for the silent reader.  Our elementary readers enjoy tracking Nate’s progress toward becoming a confident and competent Beastologist.  Boys and girls tend to enjoy this series equally.  The illustrations add interest and depth to the story and help to keep the reader engaged.  I highly recommend this book and series for an elementary audience.

This is the third book in Kai Meyer’s Wave Walkers series (fantasy genre).  The swashbuckling plot flows well and the characters are interesting.  The engaging cover art has caught the attention of our middle school readers and drawn them in to read the book.  According to my middle school student “testers” who have read the whole series, this book is the most exciting with the best adventure and action scenes of all three.  This book is rated at AR level 6.5.  This book is a great addition to our school library and I highly recommend it.

Eve Tharlet is a talented illustrator.  Her watercolor world is beautiful, delicate, and a little messy, all at once.  Her fox and badger figures are sweet, expressive, and lively.  Some children will want to stare at her pictures for hours.  However, the words do not stand up to the illustrations here.  Perhaps it is a problem of translation, either in method or culture.  The dialogue here feels wooden and awkward.  The young characters do not converse like children, the adults feel strained.  Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that this is a series.  Without prior knowledge of the characters and how they met, one does not know the context for the relationships one sees.  This leads to confusion.   This volume in the series may compliment a library which already owns the previous two volumes, but it does not effectively stand alone.

This is the ugly duckling as you’ve never seen him before.  As in other titles in this series, Blecha re-imagines the duckling and his companions in a visual style that’s half Tim Burton and half SpongeBob SquarePants.  With a few exceptions, the story is intact in its traditional form.  The mother has no part in the abuse of our young protagonist.  There is no mention of the cave by the lake from the original story.  And instead of going to the lake to seek death by swan-pecking, Duckling is going to the lake for no apparent reason at all when he sees his pleasing reflection.  And it just so happens that the swans are there, too.  Although Duckling’s experiences along his journey don’t make a lot of sense from an adult point of view, the illustrations and side jokes have massive kid-appeal.  As with other volumes in the Graphic Spin series, this includes a glossary, background information about the author, reteller, and illustrator, discussion questions and writing prompts.  All of these add value for educators to a version of this story that will catch the eyes of their students.

The Julian Game by Adele Griffin was much more of a fun read than one might expect.  Heroine Raye Archer is the new girl who wants to be popular.  She has a solid friend in Natalya, who is quirky and loves sci-fi Saturday night movies like Raye.  But when the chance comes to be friends with Ella, the queen of “The Group” on campus, Raye bends her own moral consciousness for a bit.  Mixing a lesson on the pitfalls of social media as Raye is put in the fire of the The Group’s hate with a lesson on staying true to one’s self, the strength of this text is Griffin’s subtle understanding of how teen girls of all social strata might interact with each other and with the opposite sex.  Woven in this, Raye’s conscious does keep her coming back to the good side.  Small make out sessions are just steamy enough to warrant an 8th grade and up recommendation.  Griffin’s craft of keeping the story interesting long after the initial conflict is resolved will be the reason to sell it to students. The cover photo presents the stronger main character that actually exists at the completion of the novel.

This is a cute book about a girl, Jenny,  who loves to jump, but she gets into trouble while jumping.  She wants so much to jump.

Her teacher suggests that the class have a fair to learn about African traditions, and raise money for books and computers for the Ugandan school.  Everyone seems to have an idea, except Jenny.  Then Jenny decides she can do a Jumpathon 1,000 jumps.  She asks people if they will pay for every jump she does.

In the end she jumps 1,000 times and gets her picture in the local paper.

A cute story of how every one can help make a difference in the world.

The pictures are bright and fun to look at making the story more fun to read.

Grandpa takes Timmy to the farm where he grew up.  It seemed long ago that the farm was far away, but now houses and neighborhoods have sprung up nearby.  The farmhouse and barn are ready to fall down.  Out in the field the old red tractor sits covered with rust and weeds.  Grandpa reminisces about how the tractor was used and how much fun he’d had on it.  Timmy sees the past through Grandpa’s stories and just how valuable a tractor can be.  This is a very enjoyable story about how important a piece of machinery is to a farmer and his family, one that we often take for granted.  It’ll make you think twice the next time you see an abandoned, forgotten old tractor.

In this brightly, cheery book of collages, Ehlert presents animals with spots and stripes.  Descriptions of the animals are given in a four-line verse, which rhyme awkwardly and take away from the pictures.  It is the handmade and painted papers from which the animals are made which is the main attraction here.  The pictures are large enough to see texture and how it was assembled.  Ehlert tries to interject some non-fiction into a picture book, but the facts are rather weak.  I will use this book more for it’s art, color, pattern and design.

This sequel to 13 Treasures can stand alone without having read the first book, however, you’ll become addicted to Harrison’s marvelous story and writing style and want to read it.  I read them out of order and understood the story perfectly–no awkward or wasted time in the story backtracking or explaining or transitioning.  In 13 Curses, Red (Rowan) is working to find her baby brother who had been kidnapped by the fairies, but time is against her.  The fairies have quite a different set of rules and Red ends up trading places with Tanya, the main character in book one, and must stay in the fairy underworld.  In order to get her brother, Red must complete a task, to recover the 13 charms from an ancient bracelet.  The charms all have a specific power and are hidden in the real world.  Red works with Tanya and Fabian, also from book one, to figure out the puzzles.  One storyline within the book is how Red feels so different from others.  Both she and Tanya are similar in how they can both see fairies and are fearful of them.  But Red feels responsible for her baby brother being kidnapped as well as for the accident that killed their parents.  She discovers that her Aunt Rose is actually her real biological mother, and the woman she thought was her mother is her aunt.  She is angry and can’t understand how Rose could have given up her baby.  But when she completes her task and finds her baby brother, she realizes that he has bonded with his new ‘fairy’ mother and doesn’t remember her at all.  She realizes she must give him up, even though she loves him, in order for him to be happy.  This helps her in realizing her own situation with her own mother.  I can’t wait for the third book.  Excellent!

This book makes you look at words in a whole new way.  It also makes you social.  First you want people to hear you try, then you want to hear them try.  The pictures are bright and fun to look at which adds to the interest of the book.   It is a lot of fun!

This is a tongue-in-cheek instruction guide on how and what is needed to be  a pirate.

A picture gallery is given of nine “Unkown Pirates of history” (the word unknown is misspelled) : Evil, Smiley, Hunky, Stumpy, Peg-leg, Grouchy, Greedy, Gnarly, and Magical. Of these nine, only six are given a two sentence mini-bio.  Also, included are a pirate’ Treasure Map’ with secret code, ‘Pirate Vocabulary’, ‘Pirate Code’, and ‘ Parts of the ship’ which includes #5- “King’s daughter who fell in love with a pirate and ran away to sea with him…#17 – the bad guys in the crew , #18 the fun guys in the crew”.

Dogs and horses help police with their special skills. “On horseback, an officer can see more of an area and move quickly.” (p. 24)

The author, Julie Murray, uses the word guard on pages 4,6,10,12,and 16. She used the phrase find clues on pages 1, 6, 12, 22,  & 30. Murray does not get much more specific in describing what the dogs and horses do as crime-fighters.

Proficient third grade readers enjoyed this book, as did low preforming  fifth grade reading students, but  proficient fifth grade reading students did not enjoy it.

‘There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices — found only in the pettiness of the human mind… and the pity of it is… that these things cannot be confined …to the Twilight Zone.” So ends this episode (and now graphic novel) of Rod Serling’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE first aired on March 4, 1960.

Anxiety and fear of the unknown, in a time of stress and uncertainly lead to unusual and harsh actions and reactions. A neighborhood is thrown into panic when a strange light zooms past their homes followed by a loss of electricity.

“She’s drenched and sobbing. I look at her in his clutches and my stomach twists. I don’t know how this individual has tracked us down, but I feel sure that gold bar she intended to cash must be involved. Whatever the case, right now I feel her life is in my hands. ” The dialog is full of suspense and action. The characters include a female al-Qaeda assassin, CIA agents, a bounty hunter, and a super computer named Cleopatra. The setting includes a military base and a super secure warehouse. Add in automatic cannons and flying knives, and you have a page-turning adventure novel designed for teenaged boys.

Goldstrike is Matt Whyman’s follow up to Icecore, but if the reader has not read Icecore, Goldstrike can stand alone due to Whyman’s inclusion of brief flash-backs that fill in the back story.

This is a perfect book for teenage boys, especially reluctant readers.

This is a fun and clever book.  It explores friendship and mother-daughter relationship in a really humorous way.  A good read.

This book is about a girl whose mother is an actress.  Mum is asked to be on a  reality show. Polly, the daughter, is sure this will be a total disaster. Polly writes in her diary about the happenings of her life as she is in the middle of this nightmare.  Mum has a life coach, Vanilla, who adds chaos to the mix.

I like the way the book is written from Polly’s point of view and the notes she writes.

This is a very interesting book about hairless cats.  There is a lot of information. I enjoyed learning about hairless cats.  The pictures are great and add a lot to the book.

There is a table of contents in the front, a glossary of Words to Know in the back.  Also a list of books and web sites that have more information.