Here is a fun book to get you out of the house and get the blood pumping.  Using the directions in this book with its readily available supplies, making and flying rockets (without the use of expensive or explosive engines ) can be a dream come true.   Using empty 2 liter soda-pop bottles, duct tape, bicycle pump, wire coat hangers, water, and a bicycle tire value, full-time engineer Paul Travis  helps the reader put together one, if not several, rockets for some hands-on fun in the neighborhood.

The book is divided into three parts: Rocket Basics, Extending Your Repertoire, and Advanced Rockets. Each rocket begins with a list of supplies, step-by-step illustrated directions,  4 or 5  actual photographs of each specific rocket being fired, and finally a ‘firing report’ on what to expect from the rocket as to ease of firing, height results, and enjoyment factor. This reviewer feels confident I could make the first rocket in this book and successfully fly it without having to go to the store to purchase a single item. Most of the rockets consisted of similar supplies and progressed from simple to more elaborate in small steps.

The most difficult piece of equipment to locate was a 1/2 inch (13mm) brass compression water-pipe fitting. I took the book to Home Depot to make sure I could locate the exact part. I could find a 1/2 inch brass fitting, but it wasn’t 13 mm, for approximately $7. I could also find a similar part in plastic for approximately $3. I’m guessing the rocketeer could adjust for the size difference at the pressurization stage as it states, “a pressure of about 60 psi (pounds per square inch) works well. If you don’t have a gauge, you will need to experiment to find the optimum pressure. Keep a record…and then try repeat flights with more or fewer pumps to find the optimum pressure for each rocket.” (p.12)

     Public Art is the newest title in The Eye on Art series.  Public Art discusses art in nontraditional settings, including under freeway overpasses and in subway tunnels, in fields, bodies of waters, and volcanic craters.  Public Art features urban murals (both those painted by professional artists and those painted by students and other ordinary citizens), memorial landscaping, green space decor, kitschy pop art, and art of social protest.

The book is divided into chapters that discuss ‘Art for Everyone’, ‘Evolving Ideas of Public Art’, ‘Public Art in the City’, ‘A New Way of Remembering the Past’, ‘Destination Public Art’, and ‘Public Art with a Social Message’. Photos depict the earliest American public art (an 1832 statue of George Washington), the monumental sculpture of Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, and outdoor monuments such as The Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, and The Holocaust memorial. The most recent major monument, the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, includes reelecting ponds and fountains, as does the newest monument in Washington, D.C., the World War II Memorial.

Natural art, which is built into the land, is featured in photos of the Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake, UT, and the Roden (volcanic) Crater in the Painted Desert near Flagstaff, AZ.

Examples of Environmental art are presented, including the living Natural History, made of woven saplings, in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.

Temporary installations of public art are also featured, such as the flags that made up The Gates in New York City’s Central Park, and the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a collection of quilts that, when displayed together, take up the entire National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The cover photo features the iconic pop art Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo, TX, is a shrine to the American automobile and consists of ten vintage Cadillacs (circa1949 -1963) in chronological order by model year. Each Cadillac is buried in a field nose down with the fins sticking straight up into the air. Over the years the cars have been painted over and over with graffiti.

This fascinating book includes notes, a glossary, referrals to obtain more information via books and websites, an index, and photo credits.

This is the third in the BIGFOOT BOY graphic novel series.

Friends, Penny and Rufus, will soon be spending their summer together in Northwood, when Rufus comes to stay with his grandmother. Meanwhile, Penny’s older sister is busy picketing / protesting to “save the forest” from becoming a golf course. It seems Rufus had found a totem in the forest on a previous visit and then lost it. Currently, ravens have the totem but can’t figure out how to make it work. Wolves want the totem to stop the deforestation caused by the humans. The wolves ask Thunderbird to help protect the forest from humans’ construction.

While Penny and Rufus are birdwatching with the Explorer scouts (Grammy signed them up without asking them),  they get separated from the group. Then Rufus gets separated from Penny and eventually runs into the Raven with the totem. Thunderbird has Raven return the totem to Rufus, then Rufus changes into Sasquatch, when he puts the totem on around his neck. Rufus, the Sasquatch, aka Bigfoot Boy scares off the Realtor and “The New Leaf Development representative would comment no further except to say that construction was on hold indefinitely.” (p. 95)

This is the first graphic novel I have enjoyed from start to finish! I could relate to the issues of land conservation, skepticism over the existence of Sasquatch,  the joy of being a part of a scouting troop, and the Native Americans in the storyline, as well as, in the illustrations are presented in a modern positive light.

In the Vietnam War, U.S. Troops fought in Vietnam in Southeat Asia.  Some soldiers had enlisted voluntarily, but others were forced to join the military.  Far from home, they all faced great hardships, including deadly jungle insects, monsoon rains, and an enemy they could rarely see.

Life on the Front Lines takes one behind the scenes of the major conflicts.  I liked that it used eyewitness accounts, revealing photographs and detailed text to let you feel like you were standing in the soldiers’ shoes and experiencing all parts of their lives in the conflicts.

The A.R. reading level for this book is a 5.9 and would likely appeal to late elementary and middle school students…boys and girls.

The Long Way Home is Book 2 in the series Family Tree by Ann M. Martin.  This series covers four generations of mothers and daughters, sisters and aunts…four different girls.

Book 2 is about Dana who loves loving in New York City. Yes, her twin sister, Julia, can get on her nerves.  And the heat in the summer can drive people a little crazy.  But it feels like she is in the heart of the world, and she is living to its beat.  Her father is a famous writer and takes her to parties most people can only read about in newspapers. It’s an exciting life.

Then things start to go wrong.  Dana’s father dies in a tragic accident, and Dana’s family must move to Maine for financial reasons.  Dana vows that it won’t be forever and somehow she will make her way back home to New York City.

There was enough suspense in every chapter to hold my attention and to draw me back to the book on my nightstand.  The setting is in the early 1950’s and Ms. Martin makes accurate reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Assassination of President Kennedy.

I look forward to ordering Books 1, 3 & 4 which will introduce Abby, Francie, and Georgia and the challenges they will face.  This is a family I’ll never forget.

Robots at Home is part of a series which features robots in various locations.  There isn’t a great deal of detail as to how they work or how they are programmed, but it’s basically a picture book showing the robot and telling what it does.  I kind of wondered if they can be customized, where to get one, how much they cost, etc., but I guess the target audience doesn’t ask those kinds of questions.   Some of the robots mentioned are familiar to students, such as the robot pet, the floor cleaner, and the wheelchair.

Goodnight Football is such an appealing books on many different levels.  First of all, the text is in rhyme, and clearly explains the different parts and players of the game.  Secondly, the illustrations are colorful and clear and not cluttered with unnecessary details. And, thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it is reminiscent of the classic children’s book Goodnight, Moon, in which the little boy (instead of bunny) says goodnight to all the football related items he’s seen that night.  This book is a terrific introduction to the game for those kids who aren’t so familiar with it and also for those kids who love the game.  How great to find a book in which football doesn’t depict violence and toughness.  This is a must purchase for all elementary school libraries.

2014 was the 100th anniversary of WWI. Author, illustrator Michael Foreman brings to readers a taste of what it was like in the trenches of the Western Front of France and Belgium through the eyes of his four uncles- WWI soldiers.

The young men of England were recruited to fight for “King and Country.” “As strange as it may seem today, football [soccer] played an important part in the First World War. It was used to recruit volunteers and to drive men on as they went ‘over the top’ into no-man’s-land; and it famously brought together the warring armies during the historic Christmas truce of 1914.” (page 78)

Young men who had never been away from home volunteered to fight. It would be an adventure, a chance to see the world. At first, it was parades and cheering later as the troops traveled toward the front line they encountered families fleeing the war zone and saw their first wounded troops. Eventually, they entered their life in the trenches: mud, little shelter, poor food, and firing on the Germans at dawn and dusk. Other than sentry duty, not much happened mid-day.

Enemy line could be as close as 30 yards away. Voices and the smell of food could drift in from the other side of no-man’s-land. And no-man’s-land often contained barbed wire, artillery crater holes, and dead bodies.

The war was not over by Christmas, as had been thought when the men were recruited.

Christmas Day of 1914 brought a quiet. Little by little, both sides came out of their trenches and buried their dead. Later, a Christmas tree was brought out, little gifts were exchanged, then a football [soccer ball] came out and the rest of the day was spent with both sides playing friendly, but crazy football  together.

In the days that followed, both sides saw troops moved to different parts of the front because how could the war continue to be fought if the enemies were so friendly towards each other.

In an Alaskan setting, the story of a 14-year-old dog sledder and a lost city boy collide. The dog sledder, Victoria Secord, and the city boy, Chris, are lost in the woods together after Chris has a snowmobile accident. Together the two of them and her dog sled team have to survive the cruel Alaskan night and the dangers of the wild forest to make it back to civilization before they both die.
This fast-paced novel will keep the reader wanting to know if the pair survived the night. Victoria is bullheaded and stubborn; if she puts her mind to it, she will do it. Chris is sensitive and doesn’t understand new surroundings very well. The author brings the characters to life making them very believable. This is a powerful story for those who enjoy reading survival or dog stories.
— Kellyn S.

A beautiful picture book, sharing the history behind the origins of ragtime music and the Charleston dance moves, this book also shares wider themes of turning bad into good and doing for others where you are able.  It tells of a pastor in the south at the end of the 19th century, who took in young boys and began an orphanage.  To drown out the noises from the nearby prison, he taught the boys music, and in order to earn money to support the orphanage (with dreams of someday buying a farm where the orphans could learn to support themselves), he took his band traveling.  They were so popular they were invited to England to play for King George V.  When WWI broke out, the Reverend Jenkins spent the band’s London earnings to help stranded Americans come home.  End notes in the back offer more detailed information about famous musicians who had connections to the Jenkins Orphanage Band, and how its influence spread.

I really love the illustrations, but the story leaves me a little flat.  It tells of a chicken who lives in a quiet yard on a quiet street, but is picked up on a strong wind one day and dropped into the big city.  After a day of exploring she takes a train and follows some pigeons back to her own yard, where she continues her normal life, with occasional trips on the train.  It’s fine, but it’s just kinda bland.

The illustrations are gorgeous! The story tells of a family reunion in Tanzania, with relatives visiting from America.  In celebration of the grandmother’s 85th birthday, the family goes on a safari together, ending at Bugamoyo, the remains of an old slave-trading post, where the father explains to the children the experiences of their ancestors.  The book ends as the American relatives prepare to return, but the family counts their blessings because they enjoy the freedom to travel back and forth, and Grandma reminds them all that even when they are apart, they are always under the same sun.  While sharing a common family theme of separation and coming together, the illustrations do a wonderful job of providing an authentic look at a distant land that would be foreign to most American students.

An inspiring tale, describing the author’s own experiences growing up as a stutterer.  He shares what it was like being misunderstood by well-meaning adults, his coping strategies, and his comfort being able to speak freely to animals.  All the extra time he spent with animals because of his stuttering led him to discover his passion, and a promise to be a voice for them some day, which eventually led to world travel as a zoologist and conservationist who convinced the prime minister of Belize to open the first jaguar preserve.

The first problem with this book is the biased scope of its coverage:  the title declares it to be about “History’s Most Troubled Eras,” but the other than the opening page about the middle ages, and the final page which mentions world-wide poverty and terrorism creating dangers today, every other era selected is directly tied to U.S. history, and we haven’t existed for most of history.  Even if the retitled to be about America’s most troubled eras, the selection of material is arbitrary: no mention of either of the world wars; the pages describing the dangers of exploration and colonial times don’t even mention the small pox that decimated Native American populations.  Finally, the surface level of information is so vague as to be mis-informative generalizations: it describes the cold war era as 1947-1991, and then goes on to claim that during the cold war students had nuclear raid drills, illustrated by a black-and-white photo from the 1950s.  As someone who grew up in the 1970s & 80s, I can tell you we never once had a nuclear raid drill at school.

A very early chapter book, the first in a new series of twisted fairy tales, this falls into that category of kid humor that us grown-ups can’t appreciate, but they’ll probably love it.  The heroine of the story is named Princess Pink, but she’s ademently against both princesses and the color pink, the anti-girly-girl.  In search of a midnight snack she opens her refrigerator one night and falls through to a mysterious land where she meets Mother Moose and Moldylocks, with whom she visits the home of the three beards.  Instead of porridge, they sample chili in which a spider is taking a bath.  When discovered by the beards, Princess Pink makes her escape, but Moldlylocks is captured.  Guilt-ridden for leaving her new friend behind, Moldlylocks returns, disguised as the beards’ grand-pappy, and rescues Moldlylocks from being made into chili.  I’m not ready to give it a whole-hearted endorsement, but I’m ready to consider purchasing the first few books in the series and see how the kids take to them.

Fabulous book! So good, on so many levels!  First, of course, you’ve got a highly appealing topic (dolphins rank right up there with horses for animals girls instinctively want to read about), and the gorgeous color photos immediately bring out the “oooh!” factor that draws so many people to dolphin tourist sites.  The text flows and is highly readable, and packed with information, not only about the dolphins themselves, but about the scientists and their methods for studying them.  It explains how we know what we know and it recognizes that there’s a lot we don’t know.  I learned a lot, and it left me wanting to know more, not because it left things out, but because it reminded me that there are still mysteries to be discovered by human understanding.  Fabulous book!!

There are way too many really good books about Santa out there to waste time or money on one this poor.  It’s not constructed well:  the binding will never stand up to library usage, and the many items glued into the book to give it three-dimensional character are often misaligned, at times even covering up the words. It’s not written well:  intended to be written in Santa’s voice, it babbles along is a random string-of-consciousness that makes Santa seem annoyingly ADHD (and it’s not punctuated well).  And it’s not illustrated well:  it includes a variety of illustration styles that, instead of coming across as eclectic, just seem disjoined.

Who can resist chicken jokes?  This book includes not only riddles, and knock-knock jokes, but fun facts, limericks and tongue twisters as well.  Besides the fun that makes joke books a good draw for reluctant readers, they also represent a good tool, as “getting” the jokes requires fairly sophisticated understanding of language.  This title represents a good value on several levels:  quality binding, a wide selection of types of jokes, limericks, and tongue twisters, and a significant number.  Besides, some of them a really funny (admittedly, some are groaners).  Color pages would make it more visually appealing, and it would’ve been helpful if the tongue twisters were labeled as such, as some children will be perplexed by them (the limericks and fun facts are labeled, but the tongue twisters are set apart by text boxes only).

Fans of the other Alcatraz books will enjoy spending time with these characters again.  In this installment Moose’s dad has received a promotion, and rumors indicate the cons could be out to get him.  When Moose and his sister are left alone one evening and fire breaks out in their apartment, Moose is left struggling with the guilt that his negligence could have contributed, the worry that someone might have set it on purpose (and the puzzle of trying to figure out who), and the neighbors’ accusations against his sister.  The kids on the island band together to try to solve the mystery, and end up uncovering more than one island conspiracy.  The way things are tied up a little too neatly and too abruptly at the end, without enough clue-dropping along the way, keeps it from getting a higher rating.

Based on a true story, this novel is about a young Russian boy who is abandoned on the streets of Russia during a great time of poverty where children are abandoned in abundance. A pack of dogs find the boy and start treating him better than the other homeless children where he eats and sleeps with the pack. He takes care of the dogs and they take care of him. This book is told through the eyes of a five-year-old child. It is about survival in a harsh world. The moral of the story is that one can find love and family in the most unlikely circumstances.

At first, I did not realize that this was a true story. I was really connected to the realism of it all – everything that happened I believed to be true. The author’s writing was very vivid – written from a child’s perspective. The story was so well-written that it felt like it was a biography. The book paces itself with heart-felt moments and action-packed adventure. This is a compelling read for those who like stories about animals, survival and family. I highly recommend this book.

–Hannah M.

In large text, this 300 foot national symbol is described and explained.  The statue is of a woman holding a torch signifying the light of freedom while holding a tablet representing our laws.  Built in France, it was delivered to the U. S. in 1884.  Photographs and illustrations portray different aspects of the statue – construction, placement in New York, cleaning, and as a tourist destination.  Sentence structure is simple yet full of significant facts.  Great introduction to a national symbol for young readers.  Glossary, index, bibliography, internet sites, and three Common Core questions are included.  Other titles in the set are: The American Flag, The Bald Eagle, The Pledge of Allegiance, The Star-Spangles Banner, and Uncle Sam.  Judging from the quality of this book, I would recommend acquiring the series.

A young girl and her favorite stuffed toy, Bubbit, learn there will soon be a new baby in the house.  Told in the third person, the girl and Bubbit decide to draw a welcome picture for her new brother.  When grandma Nonni arrives with her sewing basket, the two of them create a new stuffed toy for her newborn brother.  They fashion a yellow elephant out of fabric from an out-grown jacket.  Sewing steps are beautifully illustrated as the text portrays the love and friendship between Nonni and the granddaughter.  Colorful digital artwork is detailed, warm, and engaging.  This story can be used with a variety of themes and/or writing skills: new siblings, family, sewing craft, and word choice.  Pleasant book filled with the special relationship between granddaughter an grandmother.