An old carpenter enjoys the singing birds while walking through the park. He decides to build some bird houses. At first, the bird houses each have one hole in them which a pair of birds use. “2 birds times 2 houses… 2×2 = 4     2×2= 2+2 ”  The carpenter continues making bird houses, the some of the birds lay 2 eggs while others lay 3 eggs.  “2×3=6    2×3=2+2+2  …  3×2=6    3×2=3+3” 2 eggs in 3 house and 3 eggs in 2 houses  Soon the carpenter is building bird houses with two holes, then three holes and the multiplication and addition goes on and on in an entertaining fashion. The old carpenter has unwittingly created his own aviary.

The art work is very appealing and the story line is realistic. Illustrator Ju-kyoung Kim has made each bird house unique with many different species of birds coming to inhabit the houses. The facial expressions on the old carpenter convey pride and happiness in what he has accomplished.

The math concept is well represented within the story without being overpowering.  There are six pages following the story with additional practice, two of which are especially geared for adults to use while working with a child learning multiplication/addition.

A gust of wind blows Frog’s hat onto the ground where Elephant sits on it. When asked to move Elephant says, ” ‘ I can’t because I’m too hungry to move.’ ” Elephant asks Frog for something round to eat. Frog brings him an orange. Then Frog is asked for something triangular ( a sandwich), then rectangular ( chocolate bar), then a circle within a circle ( a bagel), then round inside of something triangular ( an ice cream cone), and finally “ ‘…something with a …special shape.’  The frog came back empty-handed…I hung it over there!… Then Elephant str-e-e-tched his long trunk to reach the thing with the special shape – and sucked the sweet honeycomb.” You probably have guessed what happened next, Elephant runs away from the attacking bees in their hexagonal honeycomb and frog finally gets her hat back.

There are six pages following the story, two of which are especially geared for adults to use while working with a child learning geometric shapes

The math concept (figures, shapes, space) is well represented and the story line is fine, too bad the art work isn’t more appealing. Frog and Elephant are torn paper tempera painted figures on a flat dull landscaped background. The most interesting aspect is Elephant’s trunk made of a single piece of torn corrugated cardboard.

Here is a great mini-biography, a part of the Ordinary People Change the World series. It grabs the attention of the reader with its full color comic illustrations including the conversation bubbles. It is written in first person narrative.

Helen was a “normal” child, until sickness at 19 months left her deaf and blind. She lived in a world of quiet and darkness, but then when she was 6 years old, Anne Sullivan, her private teacher, came to live with her family. “I got angry a lot back then. It was so hard for me. I was frustrated.” Anne Sullivan began the slow process of spelling words into Helen’s hand. Once Helen understood the process (no easy job) there was no stopping her. “Close your eyes.” Author Brad Meltzer builds in empathy. Later, Helen learned to read Braille. Because of this book’s thick pages, a raised dot Braille alphabet is included within the book itself. At nine years of age, Miss Sullivan took Helen to teacher Sarah Fuller, who began teaching Helen to talk. Miss Fuller let Helen “put my hands to her face and let me feel her tongue and lips as she made each sound. In an hour, I learned the letters M, P, A, S, T, and I.” Helen went on to graduate college from Radcliffe at Harvard University. Helen became a public speaker. “I started fighting for social change: to help women vote, to help the poor survive, and to help people who needed it most. “

The book ends with a timeline of Helen’s life and 4 black and white photos of her.

Here is a great mini-biography, a part of the Ordinary People Change the World series. It grabs the attention of the reader with its full color comic illustrations including the conversation bubbles. It is written in first person narrative.

Little Jackie Roosevelt Robinson was often scared as a child, but sports, of any kind, made him happy. “Those childhood games were some of the only times I wasn’t judged by the color of my skin.” In the 1920s and 1930s Jackie experienced not being able to go swimming in the all white pool until people complained. Then, “Every Wednesday, from 2 to 5 P.M., they’d open the pool to anybody black, Mexican, or Asian.” Later, Jackie was the first UCLA student to letter in four sports: baseball, football, basketball, and track. His white teammates would sometimes try to injure him, perhaps out of jealousy. Prior to World War II all white and all black sports teams played in separate leagues.  Due to the war, sports teams were short on players. Branch Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, needed baseball players. After scouting out black players, Rickey approached Robinson with a job offer. On April 18, 1946, Jackie Robinson played his first baseball game for Branch Rickey’s farm team, at the age of 27 yrs.

During his time with the Brooklyn Dodgers players purposely hit him in the head with baseballs, cleated him, spat on him, and threatened his family. “Was I mad? Yes. Was I scared? Yes. But I never let it stop me… for real change to come, you need to lead by example… When others see your example, they’ll stand with you. It’s the only way the world ever gets changed: Together.”

The “Dodgers won 6 penants in his 10 seasons“.

Following this powerful message there is a timeline of Jackie’s life through April 15, 2004 and 5 black and white photos of him.

Katie’s London Christmas is a beautiful, artistic rendering of famous landmarks in London, England.  The story takes place on Christmas Eve when Katie and her brother, Jack, hear Santa sneeze and go to investigate.  He invites them to come along which they do and they help him deliver presents in London.  It’s every kid’s fantasy come true.  However, the landmarks of London don’t mean much to the average American child who hasn’t been there nor even heard of the places.  Nice book but not a good purchase for our school library.

In this beautifully illustrated non-fiction book, Young, a master storyteller as well as author, weaves together a mystery as to who stole the Queen’s shadow.  As each animal accuses another, the story is how the accused could not have commit the theft because of their ability, or lack thereof, to see.  Round and round it goes, as each animal’s vision ability is discussed and proves them innocent.  The language and vocabulary isn’t for the younger children as the story is told in more mature language.  At the end of the book is information about how humans see, a glossary of vocabulary used, and an illustration and summary of how each of the animals in the story see and use their vision.  This book is the first of it’s kind that I have read and is so interesting and captivating that it was impossible to put down.  Learning was never so interesting.  Highly recommended.

My husband pores over sports news, trades, statistics, you name it.  His theory is that sports is a safe, gender neutral topic that just about anywhere and anytime you can find someone to talk to about.  This book would be right up his alley!  Football Rivalries goes back decades in the history of football with details of the games, players, weather, and anything else that was involved in the outcome of the game.  Sports enthusiasts and possibly reluctant readers, especially boys, will find something to talk about from this book.

Snow! is basically a wordless picture book with rich, creamy, thick paper and beautiful illustrations.  Young students will enjoy looking at the detail of bear and hare if they are inclined to be artistic.  Hare loves the snow and bear not so much.  Finally bear learns to love it when he gets to go sledding.

A proverb is an often-used saying that expresses a truth.  Kids used to be familiar with proverbs, as well as idioms, but nowadays it seems that kids don’t talk or listen to adults and they are not familiar with sayings.  It’s all new to them.  This book teaches students some basic facts about life, such as treating one another with kindness, doing a job well, using time well, taking care of yourself, just common sense stuff that they need to hear.

Patricia Polacco has been cranking out wonderful picture books based on personal stories for years.  An A From Miss Keller is an account of her own experience in school with a writing teacher nicknamed ‘Killer Keller’ because of her high, strict standards. Patricia works hard to achieve a coveted A grade from Miss Keller, but doesn’t seem to move past her regular C.  Patricia has an elderly neighbor whom she calls Pop who listens and gives her sage advice.  For her most important homework writing assignment, Patricia must write a personal narrative, but it isn’t until Pop suddenly dies that she is able to express her true feelings.  Miss Keller gave great exercises in using descriptive language and let her students know that she believed in them and that they had the ability within them to write great things.  This is such a touching story and shows how a really good teacher can inspire and draw work from her students.  If only there were more Miss Kellers around today.  This is a must purchase for both elementary and middle school libraries as well as any writing teacher.

There are so many things which bother me about this book that I don’t even know where to begin.  But since I am a visual person, I’ll start with the ‘photographs.’  These, of course, aren’t really photos but just someone manipulating internet images onto an outdoor image.  Much of the information is also straight from the internet, much of it from Wikipedia, so I’m not sure how accurate that is.    Then there is the whole time issue which concerns me.  Apparently bison originated in Eurasia and came to North America over the Bering land bridge about 10,000 years ago, right when these cats were disappearing.  Plus did horses then look like horses today?  Young kids love to look at pictures of saber-tooth tigers, however, these pictures are obviously doctored and the text isn’t of the highest quality.  Your money is better spent elsewhere.

With a good imagination, you’ll never be bored.  This is a story about Niko, a boy who excels at imagining adventures.  He has even gone so far as to build his own spaceship by recycling boxes and other things which could pass for controls.  Niko is on his way to the moon along with his dog, Tag, and trustworthy friend, Radar (a robot).    Unfortunately, his sister and a neighbor’s cat have tagged along.  They make it to the moon and don their spacesuits and helmets and go on a hunt.  Miffed at his sister, Niko leaves her there and starts for home.  Tag is upset, the cat is upset, Radar is upset, so Niko goes back and fetches his sister.  The story is how I would expect an imaginative boy to act.  The illustrations are outstanding as many of them feature black pages representing space, and white text.  Hopefully Niko’s creativity will spur some in students reading this book.

Strange and wonderful is right!  This amazing, intelligent invertebrate is a mollusk.  The book features extremely accurate, detailed illustrations rather than photographs.  Pringle includes a wide variety of factual information which captures the attention of any reader.  It is written mostly in engaging text rather than isolated snippets accompanying a photo.  The fascinating introduction to the octopus tells of different species, its intelligence, shapes, colors, textures of skin, methods of hunting, survival, and predators.  Henderson’s accurate, appealing, and colorful illustrations are well paired with the text.  A glossary, index, additional resources, and related quality websites are included.

Glamourpuss lives with the “gazillionaire” Mr. and Mrs. Highhorsen.  She has the best money can buy and is spoiled beyond belief.  She doesn’t go downstairs, she descends.  She doesn’t lie down, she reclines.  She even changed the ordinary “me-ow” to just ME!  One day, Mrs. Highhorsen’s sister, Eugenia, comes for an extended visit – with Bluebelle, a tacky Chihuahua.  Glamourpuss is horrified.  Bluebelle is taking all the attention.  When the Highhorsen’s and Eugenia left for a while, Glamourpuss discovers Bluebelle has destroyed all her costumes.  It was then Glamourpuss realizes Bluebelle just wanted to be more sophisticated like Glamourpuss.  With a few helpful instructions, Bluebelle becomes not only more stylish, but a good friend.  The ink and watercolor illustrations are humorous and depict the classy owners from the neck down – the perspective of a small pet.  This would be a fun book to use when discussing adjectives.

This book on crystals gives the reader more information than many introductory books.  Starting with how crystals are formed from minerals, this potentially complex subject is presented in a very readable format.  A variety of crystals are mentioned.  One learns how crystal shapes are formed by their facets, how crystals grow, where they can be found in nature, and how people use them.  The reader is encouraged to view websites, critique short articles, do experiments, reflect on what they know about crystals and defend their opinions.  Glossary, index, bibliography, and websites are included.  This book goes a step further than most resources by providing opportunities for the reader to contemplate, analyze, and/or appraise given information.

Reginald is not your run-of the-mill zombie.  Instead of brains to eat, he wants peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  As hard as he tries to get one, humans run or refuse to deal with him.  As fellow zombies lurch through town in search of brains, Reginald tries to persuade them to try the enticing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  One day he notices Abigail Zink, in a crowd of townspeople, holding a lunch sack containing the long sought-for sandwich.  As he shuffles toward her, the other zombies enclose looking for brains.  Reginald grabs the sack and tosses Abigail’s lunch into the gathering of zombies.  As they devour the sandwich, they discover how delicious they are!  The townspeople realize the zombies are just hungry.  In no time, zombies are working for humans, being paid with PB&Js.  Reginald, however, continues to be unlike the other zombies.  He has discovered a new food – pizza!  A fun zombie story with a twist for young readers.

Julie Murray has written another nonfiction book for young children.  Beginning readers learn about having fish for pets.  The photos are full-paged and colorful.  The vocabulary is appropriate and the text is large.  A variety of fish are shown although none are named.  A simple glossary and index are included.  The ABDO website offers further information and activities.

In this beginning reader’s nonfiction book, young children see photos of a variety of horses.  Very basic information is provided.  Photographs are full-paged and colorful.  Although names of the different breeds are not included, the common features are described and shown.  Glossary, index, and an ABDO website with additional information, videos, and activities are included.

Although this book is mainly about grizzly bears, other mammals are compared to them.  The grizzly’s features are compared to the wolverine and the three-banded armadillo.  Wild boars are also omnivorous and will dig to find roots and insects.  Like bears, the skunk will hibernate during cold months.  The American bison is large like the grizzly, inhabit similar places, yet remain active during the winter months.  Both the grizzly and jaguars are solitary animals and share similar life cycles.  The title is rather misleading.  When selecting this book, one expects to learn about the grizzly bear.  However, the focus is comparing the traits with a variety of other animals.  While one learns a great deal, it is difficult to put it all together.  A trait chart on page 30 finally clarifies the reasons each of the animals can be compared to the grizzly.  Also included are a glossary, bibliography, websites, and an index.

A beautifully photographed non-fiction book intended for a very young audience, Chipmunks introduces children to their first easy-to-read science text and gently tells about the North American rodent.  Habitat, age span, food, and raising of young are all included with accompanying photos.  Young children will delight in the photos of these cute little animals, and a caution has been given to never try to pet or feed one.