The Rising of water has created a new world order for humans.  Most of the earth is now covered by oceans.  Whole townships live within floating structures.  Humans have even adapted to be able to live entirely subsea.  Yet economic commerce retreated to basic supply and demand.  These forces combine to give Ty and Gemma a mission they never want to go on again.

Ty’s Dark Gift of sonar will help them overcome human and animal attacks, but will is be enough to locate his kidnapped Ma and Pa?  Mind games make for another level of mystery in this fast-paced middle level novel.  There is a deepening fondness growing between Ty and Gemma but everything is totally appropriate for its intended audience.  Kat Falls very creative dystopian story is full of imaginative details that should impress all readers.  In Ty, she has made a compassionate, charismatic role model for boys and girls.

Women have long been overlooked or underrepresented in the history books.  This collection of biographies about female explorers is a positive step toward recognizing these courageous women and their contributions.  The ten women explorers who are featured, with four pages of text and illustrations each, include Louise Arner Boyd, Nellie Cashman, Ynes Mexia, Lucy Evelyn Cheesman, Annie Smith Peck, Alexandrine Tinne, Delia Julia Denning Akeley, Violet Cressy-Marcks, Freya Stark and Daisy Bates.  These mini biographies give a snapshot of each woman’s life and accomplishments, written in well-organized text which is easy to read and understand.  There are several colorful and expressive illustrations for each biography which compliment the text nicely.  I learned a lot reading this book and discovered heroes I was not familiar with before.

Bad Kids:  The naughtiest children in history explores laws and punishments from ancient to modern day societies.  The author’s writing style is very tongue-in-cheek and humorous, while sticking to historical facts on the subject.  Several famous characters from history around the world are featured including their notorious childhood behavior.  This book is easy to read and engaging with comical illustrations, historical portraits and photographs as well as artwork to support the subject matter.  I would recommend this book for 4th grade and up due to some violent content.

This beautiful book about Ancient China covers a variety of topics including the Silk Road and early trade, the early Yangshao and Longshan civilizations, Chinese philosophers, ruling dynasties and emperors.  The Great Wall of China is mentioned.  Chinese inventions and other achievements are outlined including the development of a writing system, bronze and iron for use as weapons and tools, Chinese medicine, fireworks, wheelbarrows, umbrellas and the discovery of silk. There is a timeline for major events in history as well as a glossary, index, table of contents and further resources page.  The illustrations and photographs are beautiful and the backgrounds for each page are tasteful and not distracting.  The text is clearly written and organized.  I highly recommend this book.

This Justin Bieber biography is chock full of photographs, graphics, and facts about Justin’s life to date.  The text is clearly written and employs current “hip” slang throughout which might help with engaging young readers.  Although the recent photographs are good quality, the older ones of Justin’s childhood tend to be blurry.  I think Bieber fans will enjoy this book.

This is a non-fiction book about Alligators from a wonderful animal series that is packed full of interesting facts about habitat, diet, behavior, appearance, predators, characteristics, mating habits and raising the young.  Environmental and human hazards are also explored.  There is a habitat map as well as an index, glossary, quick facts page and a page for further resources.  These books are well-written and full of beautiful and high quality color photographs of alligators in their natural habitat.  I highly recommend this book.

This is a non-fiction book about Black Bears from a wonderful animal series that is packed full of facts about habitat, diet, behavior, appearance, predators, characteristics, mating habits and raising the young.  Environmental and human hazards are also explored.  There is a habitat map as well as an index, glossary and page for further resources.  These books are well-written and full of beautiful and high quality color photographs of bears in their natural habitat.  I highly recommend this book.

This was a great picture book all about the life of pirates.  The facts were interesting but not too scary for young readers and the illustrations were funny and full of rich detail and color.  There was a fold out page depicting a cut-away view of the interior of a pirate ship which students will really enjoy as well as a page with a pirate song, one with a pirate game, a quiz about pirate facts and a game to match pirates and their hats.  This exciting and interactive book is sure to be enjoyed by our elementary readers.

This chapter book for young readers (AR ATOS level 3.7) is about 2nd grader, Gooney Bird Greene who is quite an eccentric, confident and intelligent character.  She leads the class in a geography project before President’s Day vacation to explore the various travel plans of students in the class.  A few students who were bragging quite a bit about their plans learn to be more humble and appreciate fun activities closer to home.  I found the characters in this book to be unbelievable at times, particularly Gooney who presented as more knowledgeable than the teacher.   In addition, the editing was sloppy, with sections of text repeating on pages 19-20 and 25-26 which can be confusing to young readers.  I’m a big fan of Lois Lowry’s work but consider this book just an “additional purchase” if you want to complete the Gooney Bird set.

Young learners will enjoy seeing where eggs come from- the chickens and the farm. They will see: a side by side labeled diagram of a chicken (both hen and rooster), eggs naturally come in colors other than white, chickens raised for egg production and for meat, free range chickens with movable coop, different breeds of chickens are different colors, baby chicks, and a diagram of the life cycle of a chicken.

Each turn of the page give a full page photo, four or five sentences of factual text, and  usually a smaller photo by the text.

If you don’t look closely, you’ll miss the note on the last page (below the index) “from Matt and Tara of Howling Wolf Farm…We work in partnership with  nature and people to grow vibrant, abundant food…”

This book contains two graphic novel episodes of Scooby-Doo and two one-page “Velma’s Monsters of the World”.

When college students begin to disappear,  Scooby and gang investigate the video tape of the fast acting super contagious Virus-Z. They figure out Virus-Z isn’t from a biology lab class, but from a film making class. Case solved.

Velma gives information about the Yama-Uma from Japanese folklore.

In the second case, after a hurricane doesn’t ruin the Gumbo Restaurant, the owner still isn’t out of trouble because a bayou monster is creating havoc. Scooby and gang split up and chase the monster down on air jet boats to find the restaurant owner’s jealous twin brother in the monster outfit. Case solved.

Velma gives information about the griffin.

Though Paula Danziger is no longer with us, her good friends Bruce Coville and Elizabeth Levy have brought her, Amber Brown, character back to life in this new book in the Amber Brown series.

“I, Amber Brown, have to spend a million dollars.” So begins this tale of a school project in Chapter One. “We have to include: 1. Buy a house, 2. Pay for college, 3. Give to charity, 4. Spend the rest in $25,000 chunks”.  Chapters 2-17 are about Amber’s relationship with her father and soon to be remarried mother. Money issues arise as the wedding is planned, but they work themselves out.  Amber’s best friend, Justin, will be coming back to town from Alabama, for the wedding. And Amber makes a new unexpected friend of a follow classmate through the wedding planning.

“Sometimes happy and sad comes so close together in my life that I can’t keep track of how I’m feeling.” (page 87)

Nine year old Amber does not like to hear her divorced parents talk negatively about the other parent and tells them so, several times.

There is a happy ending!

This Iroquois creation myth is told using modern style artwork in graphic novel form, but with only one frame per page. The text box at the top of each page sits in a frame made of four bare bark tree branches stretching an animal hide. Sky Woman is wearing stylized pre-1492 Iroquois clothing.

Sky Woman becomes ill, then falls through a hole in the clouds. Swans gently carry her to a watery earth. Toad brings up earth from under the water and places it on Big Turtle’s back. It magically grows into an island, which eventually becomes all of North America. Sky Woman has twin boys, one is evil-spirited and the other is good-spirited. They bring good and evil into the world.  Six pages later, it skips back to “Big Turtle still carries the land on his back. Sometimes he stretches out his legs, causing the earth to tremble.”  [The End]