There was no department of children’s services in the middle ages.  After being threatened by the innkeeper his dad sold him to for beer, Will Sparrow runs off and must make his own way in the world any which way he can.  He meets (and often finds himself cheated by) many interesting characters along the way, as he fills his belly by foraging, thieving, and teaming up with assorted hucksters at market fairs.  I love Karen Cushman’s books in general, and I would count this one among her better ones: there’s something about rooting for a kid on his own, wondering what it would be like to find yourself in such a situation, that works as a great way to draw young readers into the genre of historical fiction.  The depictions of the setting will draw students in and help them imagine a time period far-removed, about which they may know little.  I’m a fan.

Flutter is a powerful story about sisterhood, survival, and love that I’m sure will stay with you for a long time!  As Mama prepares to have her baby, sisters Dawn, Maple, and Beetle all prepare to welcome baby sister Lily.  The story is told by middle sister Maple .  When Baby Lily arrives too early and with a heart that does not work quite right, Maple knows it’s up to her to find a miracle that will save Baby Lily.  In searching for “the miracle” sisters Dawn and Maple encounter real dangers and realize a thing or two about miracles..and about each other.  There is plenty of adventure in this book to hold the interest and attention of any reader.

With kids growing up watching more reality TV than other programming, it’s no wonder The Daughters series would be picked up by a publisher.  And with a name like Philbin attached to it, Poppy took a chance.  Does is matter that teens probably don’t know who Regis Philbin is?  A little, because as one reads The Daughters Break the Rules, Carina, who narrates this second installment of the series, finds is frustrating to be known as “the daughter of a billionaire” because of the assumptions that are constantly made.  But Philbin is realistic in her portrayal of these three teen starlet children living in NYC.  While Carina is at first crushed when her father cuts her off from her lavish spending habits, a reader can clearly see that she’ll rebound.  She can make it on $20 a week.  But I really like the fact that Carina is allowed to become part old self and part new self by the end.  Her vision of the world is much more broad, thanks to a love interest from a different “league”, but she clearly loves her high end lifestyle and embraces that again with new respect for others.  This can be read as a stand alone.  If the other books follow the same plot line but with different narrators, I can imagine the story might get uber predictable.  7th – 10th grade girls into fashion and drama will enjoy this flighty, fast paced read.

The author, as a young boy, was always on the search for heroes like Babe Ruth, Leonardo da Vinci, Harry Houdini, etc.  However, his inspiration for this book came from Bob Dylan’s search for “his guiding star.”  Bob was raised in a mining town in Canada, where his Jewish family ran a business.  Since he neither wanted to mine or run a business, his passions kept drawing him to music, to the disappointment of his parents.  After being kicked off stage for being too loud at a school talent show, Bob was determined more than ever to “be a music star one day…even bigger than Elvis…and show them all.”  Inspired by Woody Guthrie, who could make people think and feel, Bob learned all of Woody’s songs and hundreds more.  He practiced so diligently that he could now rivet his audience.  When he heard that Woody was in the hospital, he went to see him.  He sang Woody’s songs and put a smile on that weak and tired face.  Their friendship opened many doors for Bob Dylan,  and the rest is history.  The accessible narrative is peppered with quotations from Dylan’s own writings, his biographies,  lyrics of songs, and interviews, all of which are notated in the Back Matter.  The Author’s Note ends with…”Finally, if we could all meet our heroes–even in our imagination–maybe we’d understand our own stories better and who we really want to be.”  Bright, bold illustrations in acrylic and oil  captivate the reader just as much as the story line.  All in all, a beautiful book!

Watercraft engineering becomes  the avenue for student inventors, scientists and artists to test their creative ideas with The Motorboat Book.  A myriad of concepts can be learned in a natural, hands-on way, such as buoyancy and density, chemical reactions, energy and energy  transformations, forces and motion, hydraulics, electric cirucits, just to name a few.  First, one needs an “ocean” in which to test the boats.  Contruction models for large, small and tiny oceans give the reader many options.  A variety of hulls are described , as well as 21 ways to propel that boat.  Pumps, to move water, submarines, projects suggestions round out the contents of this rich resource for  building motorboats.  Written in a “How To” format…materials needed and steps to take…prolific black and white photographs support the reader in following the instructions.  My only wish is that the photos were of higher quality, instead of fuzzy amateur snapshots…with poor lighting that, in a few cases, makes it even hard to  figure out what you are looking at.  I wanted this book for our collection because kids could get a lot of great ideas for their Science Fair projects.   And water play is universally fun!

This is a fasinating  book about robots.  The pictures are very fun to look at.  The book tells about the robots that are in space and what they are learning from them.  Robots can help us learn so much about the planets.  They can help repair a space station and much more.  There is much information in this book that it was

This is a good book that has great pictures.  There is a lot of great informative text that teaches about the stock cars.  There is a lot of explaining on how the cars are put together and transformed into race cars.  The book describes the tracks and the length and shape of tracks. There is a glossary in the back, and an index.  There is a table of contents in the front.

Jessie and Evan Treski are in the same 4th grade class together. Jessie, Evan’s overachieving sister, has decided to publish a school newspaper by Valentine’s day. Mysterious candy hearts with unique messages on them start to appear in students’ desks. The poetry assignment encourages Evan to write a secret poem about a girl in class. Jessie decides to survey the class about their crushes and is determined to publish all the secrets in her newspaper, unaware of how she could hurt everyone involved. This is an entertaining mystery. Each chapter starts with a word and its definition that pertains to the chapter it precedes. After the story the reader will find a copy of Jessie’s newspaper, a list of poetry terms and their definitions, and 10 poems. Fun read. This is book #4 of the Lemonade War Series.

The text in Sea Turtles contains many informative and easily read facts.  Words to know are in red and, although in the glossary, are often explained on the page.  The seven species of sea turtles are presented with clear, colorful photographs.  Occasional Fun Fact boxes provide additional information.  Physical characteristics, diet, habitat, behaviors, and distribution are described.  Other land turtles and tortoises are briefly mentioned.  Although sea turtles have been around more than 200 million years, their future is at risk without appropriate assistance from humans.  Global warming, lost habitats, and pollution are the biggest threats.  A map illustrating the range of sea turtle habitats is included in the back with the glossary, index, and sites to access additional facts for sea turtles, turtles, Galapagos turtles, fossils, and reptiles.  Citation information for these resources are also included.

Binky, the space cat, must train a new recruit.  The only problem is that this new cadet is a dog named Gordon.  When training appears to be ineffective, Binky and his superior, neighborhood cat Captain Gracie, suspect that Gordon is a double agent in the fight against aliens (flies).  Surveillance of Gordie’s actions in outer space (outdoors), leaving messages and dis-arming anti-alien devices, convince Binky that Gordie is a traitor.  The adventures of teaching this unmanageable recruit includes a bit of potty humor as this young pup learns routines.  Ultimately, Gordie proves himself to be a super alien fighter and a technological genius.  Ashley Spires’ monotone watercolor illustrations help tell this amusing adventure parody.

Mr. Green, a cookie-loving alligator, followed his nose to a freshly baked tray of cookies and discovered an odd note warning they were terrible.  This was strange because Mrs. Green always baked wonderful cookies!  After investigating the ingredients, he decided to taste one.  Delicious!  Then he wondered about the others.  Just as he finished the last one, Mrs. Green returned home.  She showed him how he had misread the note and told him she had doubled the recipe – and the rest were ready to bake.  Mr. Green began calculating how many cookies there would be if one kept doubling the recipe!  Bright, colorful acrylic artwork beautifully illustrates the text.  Originally published in 2006 as On the Go with Mr. and Mrs. Green, the new 2012 edition changed the title to Cookies.

This 6.25″ X 7.25 ” book is for having fun while  searching for jungle animals and plants hidden on darkened transparent plastic with the use of a punch-out  cardboard ‘torch’ [flashlight] found at the back of the book. As a school librarian, I have my doubts as to how long the torch will remain with the book, but have found a simple 1.5 X 7  inch strip of white paper will do the job, or even simply holding the plastic page in front of a window, will work.

I like that the book states, ” “Watch out. You would never see all the animals you will find in this book in one place, because they come from jungles all over the world.”

There are 6 plastic transparent pages on the right hand side for the reader to search for the animals and plants listed and roughly shown in a key on the opposite left hand page. The six transparent pages cover 5 jungle life zones with a sixth one on animal camouflage. The emergent treetop zone has 12 animals, the canopy has 15, the lower branches have 15, the undergrowth has 14, the river has 16, and the camouflage has 11 animals to find.

The book does not provide textual information on the animals to be found.

Bot Wars is a look into the future in which robots play an important role.  As they do now, robots are used for everything, but even more so.  They were affordable and so many people had them.  Kind of similar to cars and computers now.  The custom was to work the robots until they wore out and then dispose of them.  Then someone came up with the idea and invention of a ‘think chip’ which was implanted into each robot.  This enabled the robot to become more human.  Almost too human.  Now they had opinions and were demanding civil ‘rights.’  Many people wanted the think chips removed, but not the robots.  The country became divided and war ensued: one side wanting the old robots back and one side supporting the new robots.  The government sided with the first.  In this story, the small family of a father and two sons support the bots.  The oldest son lost his leg in the war and the father has long since disappeared since going to fight.  Apparently the long-lost father is the leader of the rebellion of the bots.  During the fighting he became severely injured and was repaired by the bots using bot parts and is now mostly bot himself.  The relationships in the story are interesting, the politics are maddening, and the science fiction abilities are fascinating.  The story line moves along quickly, and the characters are well developed.  My only criticism is the repeated use of the words ‘wrenched’  and ‘geared.’  Old words with new meaning.  This disrupted the otherwise smooth language.

Daisy loved doing a lot of things.  One day her teacher told the class that they were going to write sentences about animals.  The twist was that all the words had to start with the same letter or sound as the animal’s name.  It’s call alliteration.  Daisy thought the sentences were fabulous!

This is a cute book about alliteration and Daisy trying to get the boy next door to quite calling her Lazy Daisy.  She came up with, Dynamite Dramatic Determined Dazzling Daisy.  But that turned out to be a problem.

Ty is a seven year-old boy who comes up with some strange ideas. Like battling the cat with the dust buster or bring  a baby penguin home from the zoo in his backpack.  Ty is not so sure he likes his new baby sister Maggie because she takes up all of Mom’s time.

Ty’s biggest problem is now that he has a penguin in his house what to do with it.  His sister’s help him try to get it back to the zoo without Mom knowing what is going on.

In this ninth epic novel by Dav Pilkey, George and Harold explain how they were sentenced to 10 years in Piqua State Penitentiary with Warden Schmorden from the previous novel. George and Harold then proceed to tell [in chapters 3-8] what happened there with Tippy Tinkletrouser in charge of making a BIG ‘statue’ for the penitentiary’ 10th anniversary. Along the way, ” ‘ That ridiculous super hero foiled my plot to take over the planet and enslave humanity!’ shouted Tippy. ‘He’s the reason I got locked up!’ ”

The sophomoric, slap-stick humor coyfully continues as George and Harold tell of how they first met back in kindergarten while outwitting the principal’s bullying 6th grade nephew.

Chapter Twelve – The Incredibly Graphic Violence Chapter (in Flip-O-Rama)  : Indiana George and the Tie of Doom is my favorite of all time, because I was able to do my best flipping of all time, with this action sequence!

Chapters 17-27 are quite ingenious, intriguing as to how kindergarteners George and Harold outsmart the 6th grade bully using his own school locker!

In the end, Tippy Tinkletrouser has gone back in time, changed the course of history and there may never be another Captain Underpants adventure because of it.

This ninth novel has a higher reading level than the first seven novels in the series and 100+ more pages than any on the other novels in this series.

Sean Price gives us the most basic and general of information on the causes and effects of water pollution created by human activity. Causes include farms’: animal waste, fertilizers and pesticides; industrial waste dumping; and human residential sewage.

The water pollution is talked about from past history to the present as causing health problems for wild life and humans including: diseases, such as, cholera and ‘dead zones’ were plant and/or animal life have been poisoned to extinction in specific areas.

The creation and need for the EPA is discussed.

There are 7 insets entitled ‘Eye-openers’ and 6 entitled ‘Question Time’ sprinkled throughout the 32 pages of this book, as well as, 6 diagrams and graphs. The Eye-openers give additional information and the Question Time sections give further explanation to the information introduced on that page.

This book believes in the saying a picture is worth a thousand words. There are pictures on every page.

The Table of Contents lists “Where to Find Out More” on page 31, but this section is missing.

Bully Bean is mean.  Lima Bear, the only one who is green, seems to be Bully Bean’s favorite target.  When Bully Bean gets trapped, it is Lima who brings help. After watching how hard everyone worked to free him, Bully Bean realizes his large size and great strength could be a huge help to all in Beandom.  Being kind is much more rewarding than being a bully.  In the back are extended learning activities, an pictorial list of additional Beandom books, and brief comments from approving readers.  Each book teaches lessons on tolerance, honesty, courage, and working together to help children learn how to handle common situations.

Tallulah loves ballet and is frustrated when told she cannot have toe shoes until her feet stop growing.  She admires the older ballerinas dancing en pointe and steals a discarded pair of shoes.  Determined to be the youngest dancer en pointe, Tallulah struggles to look graceful.  Her feet quickly become hot and painful.  As she reluctantly returns the shoes to the wastebasket, the previous owner sees her.  She tells Tallulah she understands but with practice and time, Tallulah, too, will probably dance en pointe.  Tallulah’s dreams get a dose of reality but this does not diminish her determination.  Those who love ballet will also enjoy Tallulah’s Tutu and Tallulah’s Solo.  Illustrations are pastel watercolor which complements this topic.

Rebecca Brown returns to New Orleans for spring break. It is here that she meets a ghost from the 1800’s who, as a boy, was to deliver a locket with a mini painting within it which was created by the famous painter, Degas. Unfortunately the boy was killed, dropping the locket between floorboards of a house. Rebecca is determined to recover the locket and deliver it to a descendant of Degas. It turns out, danger is around every corner. The locket is guarded by a dangerous ghost who was the original killer, a bully who repeatedly threatens Rebecca and her friends, and the house with the concealed locket is boarded up, scheduled for destruction. With the help of another friendly ghost and several friends, Rebecca cleverly tricks the dangerous ghost and bully, successfully fulfilling her mission. The second book in the series, this book is entertaining, filled with suspense, danger and relationships.