Stella and Barry explore the idea of taking care of a person in Mini Goss’s Too Hot For Spots.  Barry is still in his pj’s when Stella arrives to play.  Stella says she’ll make him all better and proceeds to tap, squish and make Barry say “ahhh”. This would be the perfect book to accompany a Fisher-Price doctor’s play set as such toys take up a two page spread and Stella plays with all of them while trying to get Barry “all fixed.”  But of course, Stella wants to play the patient too, and her idea of chicken pox leaves both friends covered in red sticker dots.  The bright, warm colors and textures of these knit characters is charming and unique.  The end notes contain a small paragraph explaining their creation.  K-1 students will definitely enjoy its kid humor of tickles and giggles.  Recommended.

The 1860’s in the United States was a time of huge change. The war between the North and South to determine the outcome of slave ownership resulted in a tremendous loss of life. This war dominated the news, however, there was another war going on, the one started by wealthy New Yorker Henry Bergh. This war involved humans and their animals. Bergh was horrified by all the abuse heaped upon helpless, innocent animals. His observations began right in the streets of Manhattan where horses were whipped mercilessly. Horses lived to maybe one year of age and their carcasses were tossed into the river. This opened Bergh’s mind to other instances of abuse: dog fights, rat fights, slaughter houses, circus acts, cock fights, fox hunting, pigeon shooting, dairy animals, and so on. His work created legislation that made anti-cruelty animal laws which carried jail time as well as monetary fines. Bergh’s work also led to animal licensing and the ASPCA being formed. Another interesting fact is that his work to prevent animal cruelty led to legislation for anti-cruelty laws for children and child labor laws. It was his life’s work to protect the innocent. Interestingly enough, Bergh and his wife had no children nor any pets of their own. I was amazed that this all transpired 150 years ago. The United States was a relatively new country and had no means of mass media. However, through the efforts of one single but determined man, millions of animals and children’s lives have been saved or made better. This is truly an inspiring story.

In this version of the classic fairy tale, Goldilocks is portrayed as a sweet, polite, and curious child, who loved to wander and explore. She comes upon an unlocked cottage and knocks, but the smell or porridge lures her inside. She calls out to see if anyone is home first, then she enters and sees the porridge already in bowls and wonders why breakfast would be set out and no one home to eat it. She doesn’t think anyone would mind if she ate it. Afterwards she decides to sit down and wait for the people and tries the chairs, finding the smallest one perfect for her. But it broke. Now she knows she must stay and say she’s sorry about the chair. She wanders upstairs and finds the beds and falls asleep in the smallest one. While asleep, the three bears, first time they’ve been mentioned, come home and discover the eaten porridge, broken chair, and Goldilocks asleep. She awakens, sees the bears, screams, and runs all the way home, never to go there again. Goldilocks is actually a nice little girl and so are the bears. Again, Little Hare has produced a quality version of a popular fairy tale making the characters likable and nothing scary about it.

This is another rewritten fairy tale published by Little Hare Publishing that is more kid friendly than previous versions. Little Red Riding Hood is given instructions by her mother to take a basket of goodies to her ill grandmother and not to dawdle along the way. That’s it. She meets the wolf who is actually very polite and pleasant, not at all scary. He even suggests that her grandmother might enjoy some of the wildflowers growing alongside the path. She picks and he runs to grandmother’s house and eats her whole. LRRH shows up and he eats her, too, then falls into a sleep, snoring loudly. A woodsman hears and comes in the cottage and cuts open the wolf and rescues grandmother and LRRH. They fill his stomach with rocks and when he awakens, he stumbles outside and falls into the well and drowns. Kids immediately recognize that LRRH is too friendly with the wolf, but they aren’t scared by the story. This version is great for beginning readers.

There are several versions of The Ugly Duckling, not all of them kid friendly. This version is kid friendly and doesn’t focus on the bullying done by the other birds. Clearly, there is bullying, but the actual words aren’t mentioned, only the feelings of the ugly duckling. The rest of the story is the same and the ugly duckling joins a group of other swans and realizes that he is one of them. Kind of a nice feeling to the story as the ugly duckling searches for a group in which he fits. Who doesn’t?

Goodnight, Good Dog is nice.  Period.  It is the explanation of a dog who doesn’t want to sleep even though everyone in the rest of the house is.  Finally he settles down and sleeps, dreaming of the things he liked during the past day.  The prose is simple yet slightly monotone. The best page is when the dog recognizes the lullaby rhythm of the title’s repetition as he curls up in him bed.  The illustrations are basically primary and secondary colors.  Such simplicity could only be for the benefit of the youngest of listeners, but this reader wonders if even that will hold their attention.  Not recommended for school libraries.

Fans of the Jake and the Neverland Pirates will enjoy this book based on the episode “Rock the Croc”.  The book version is filled with one rebus ( in which the word is written below in a very small font) of a noun on almost every line throughout the book. There are, also,seven side questions, such as “Can you help Jake spot the crocodile?” (11), throughout the book.

Jake and his pirate friends Cubby and Izzy find a map for Pirates’ Plunge , a waterslide, floating inside a bottle. When Hook tries to take the map from them, the bottle flies through the air. Croc swallows it.  What follows is Hook always trying to outdo Jake, Cubby, and Izzy’s attempts to retrieve the bottle from Croc. First, they try to tickle Croc to make him sneeze the bottle with the map out, then they try to get Croc to burp it out. Finally, Hook accidentally steps on a log, resting upon another log like a teeter-totter, Croc catapults Hook through the air. Croc laughs so hard “the bottle with the map flies out of the Croc’s mouth.” (29)

Off Jake, Cubby, and Izzy go to Pirates’ Plunge for some waterslide fun, too bad Hook is stuck up in a tree.

The cover of this book shows a boxy little robot with BIG eyes, a single antenna, and a degree meter on his chest. This could not be farther from the robot inside the pages of this book, but it is cute and grabs the reader’s attention. The reader, whose attention it grabs, though, might be younger than the intended book’s audience. It is short book, only 50 pages, great for reluctant readers.

Shawn is a 12 year old who loves basketball. When Shawn comes home after a dismal time of shooting hoops after school with his friend, his father nabs him at the door for not putting his jacket away properly. Then after dinner, a dinner his mother can hardly eat because she is so excited about the news she wants to share with the family about her work. ” Mom came home with so many wacky ideas it was hard to believe she had a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering.” (10) This time she brought home C-Y-R-S or Closed-loop Young Robot System or Cyrus. It mimicks Shawn’s movements. “Cyrus blinked slowly and then said,’ I am here to integrate with the Cole family. Dr. Cole, her husband Mr. Nathaniel Cole, and their son Shawn Cole will demonstrate how to have realistic human interactions and relationships. I will study human emotions and try to replicate feelings. I will even learn to accept the family canine, basset hound, Scooter, as a close companion.’  “(14) Oh, and Cyrus looks just like Shawn (not the robot on the book’s cover). This fact kept reminding me of the Will Smith movie, i Robot.

Shawn is expected to share his bedroom with Cyrus. Shawn sleeps through his math quiz at school the next day because Cyrus kept waking Shawn up all night. First, Cyrus began to overheat, then Cyrus could not connect to the Wi-Fi at home, Cyrus needed a password and a login, this was followed by Cyrus’ playing with Scooter, like Cyrus was a dog, and finally Cyrus was bouncing Shawn’s LA Laker’s autographed basketball on Shawn’s bed.  Mr. Velazquez, Shawn’s math/science teacher and school basketball coach, wakes Shawn up after the rest of the class has gone to their next class. Poor Shawn, Mr. Velazquez informs him he will have to cut Shawn from the basketball team due to grades, unless Shawn completes all of his make-up work by tomorrow. At home, Cyrus is playing the latest unreleased video game, which he was able to download. Shawn tricks Cyrus into doing his make-up work by saying, ‘  ‘ How about you work on that while I play for a bit. Then we’ll switch?’  ”  ( (24)[ NOT sure what happened next because my copy of the book was missing the end of this chapter and the beginning of the next chapter, four pages total. When my copy of the book continues] Cyrus is getting ready for his first day of school with his brother Shawn. All the of the students love Cyrus. Shawn turns in his make-up work. By the end of the day, Mr. Velazquez figures out that Cyrus actually did the make-up work and won’t let Shawn back on the basketball team. Mr. Velazquez will be telling the principal about the cheating, too. Even though Shawn has been “mean, rude, abrasive, jealous” of Cyrus, Cyrus wants to help Shawn get back on the team, because  ” ‘ Like I said, if the research says brothers help each other out, then that’s what I need to do to learn to be your brother. I think it might be fun.’  “(40)

Cyrus does not enjoy being surrounded by so many people vying for his attention all of the time. People who all wanted something from him for themselves.

Cyrus’ plan didn’t fool the coach and Shawn is still off of the team, but they come to an understanding. Cyrus volunteers to help Shawn with his math, help not do it for him.

This is a delightful book with delightful illustrations. Poppy is your typical little kid who is learning the hard way how to earn recognition for her effort. She thinks that because she wants to be a writer, she already is a great writer without any effort. Wrong! When her best friend, Lavender, gets recognized by the teacher twice, Poppy gets angry and immediately reacts with “it’s not fair!” The third time her assignment is to write how to do something and after struggling with reality Poppy realizes that ‘how to get in trouble’ is the perfect title for her paper. She writes how she misbehaved and hurt people. Her honesty and hard work finally pays off when her teacher chooses her paper as the best. Kids could see that Poppy’s first work wasn’t good by anyone’s standards and that after having her meltdown, she was able to focus on her work and her words. This story really resonated with students and I hope they took it to heart in their own writing.

Both of these men were brilliant, with distinct similarities and differences. Edison, the eldest of the two, had more creative ideas, new ideas, that would make life better for people, and he applied for many patents on his inventions. Ford also desired to make life better for people, but rather than inventing something entirely new, he took already thought of creations and tweaked them to make them better. Ford admired Edison and strived to meet him. When he did, Edison shared the secret of his success: keep on trying! The two became best friends for the rest of their lives. The illustrations are beautiful and depict the era and the culture of the time. This book should be in every school library as it stresses the concept that mistakes teach us and perseverance is important to success.

This graphically appealing biography presents the Wright brothers in an accessible way for young readers.  The graphic enhancements include a mix of period photos as well as current images of historic locations.  Airplane specific terms such as roll, pitch, and yaw are introduced with a combination of diagrams and explanations, yet the glossary is sparse, with only 3 terms.  The text details the process of development while including personal facts about the Wright Brothers.  A perfect title to support the Next Generation Science Standards.  

This book follows along as Dar goes on his first mammoth hunt with his clan. The reader tag along as the clan encounters challenges and successes throughout the hunt.  As the story progresses through the book, each page includes facts about the Stone Age people and the skills they needed to survive.  The back of the book includes a list of ten interesting facts about the Stone Age that were not included in the book.  It also includes a glossary of some of the words that might be harder for the younger children to understand.  The glossary is a great way to help the younger children enjoy the book.

This is a very interesting book about the California gold rush.  The book includes the history of California before the gold rush and the discovery of gold by James Marshall which kicked off the gold rush.  The book is a great timeline of California’s growth not only in population but in diversity.  It covers the miner’s life, methods for panning for gold and the hardships that some of the people faced.  As fast as the mining boom took off, it ended, creating more and different industries for the state.  Most of the pages offer sidebars with interesting facts and websites to explore with more information.  There is a nice stop and think section in the back of the book that helps the student really evaluate what they have learned from the book.

For the past 15 years, our school has seen a huge influx of immigrant children, coming from countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Russia, Japan, China, Thailand, Figi, India, Ethiopia (and other African countries), and lately, many from Saudi Arabia. These children arrive as non-English speaking and extremely shy. Who wouldn’t be? As this book shows, these kids are quiet, sad, observant, and bright. It would be extremely difficult to leave family and friends and a familiar culture to go live where to don’t know anyone, everything is different, and you can’t even be understood. But as this book points out, communication comes in different forms, and even though the differences in people are dramatic, there still are similarities enough to bridge the language barrier and to form friendships. This book provides very simple ideas to use as discussion points for those classrooms who have a non-English speaking student. This book should be in every elementary school library.

Peter Pan is the classic story of a boy who never wanted to grow up. Word for word, this edition is the same as the original, first published in 1911. Here are the differences: first, the cover art is more child-friendly and depicts a boy child in a tree, hands on hips, looking over a ship in the harbor. Secondly, the size is more appropriate for a child’s hand, and measures 5.25″ x 8″. Thirdly, there is a glossary at the back which explains some of the unique (outdated) vocabulary. Fourthly, there are suggested activities for children who want to play at being Peter Pan. And, lastly, and most interesting to me, was the information at the end which explains J.M. Barrie’s life and motivation for writing Peter Pan. He must have been such a kind man to have adopted the orphaned children that gave him inspiration for Peter’s ‘boys.’ Also, the information that Barrie gave the Peter Pan copyright to the children’s hospital so that long after his death the hospital would continue to earn money to help the children was simply amazing. This is a wonderful and cherished story told by a man too good to be true. I wish there were more like him.

In the land of the midnight sun in a time when the earth was young and light disappeared entirely from the earth, an orphan boy watched a Shaman repeat the same ineffectual chants and charms in an effort to return the sun.  While often treated poorly, the boy was still determined to make a difference for his people and begged his aunt for help.  She sends him off with a magical raven cloak and snowshoes to find the light.  After a long journey, he comes upon a man shoveling snow over a ball of fire and with every shovel full, the light was concealed.  The boy steals the light and transforms into a raven to escape back to his village bringing day to his people.

The voice of an oral storyteller can be heard in the language of the story.

Katie Woo hears hear Dad play the piano and she wants to make music too.  She tries the piano and all her friends’ instruments, “but I’d like to play something of my own,” she says.  She finds her own instrument in the sounds she enjoys around her and discovers the drums are her own way to make music.  The repetitive testing and discarding of musical instruments gives the text predictability for young readers.  Showing a Chinese American girl exploring the world around her, this is a great series to diversify your early reader collection.

Includes a Glossary of Musical terms, discussion questions and writing prompts, directions to make a Chinese drum.

Communities may come in all sizes, however, all need helpers that contribute to make it a special place. This book provides an insight into these types of jobs, what training or education they require, and scope of duties for each job. From Police Officers, to Doctors or Dentists the people that work in these positions are helpers that make our towns and cities special, safer, and a better place for all indeed. Jokes and tips accompany each page through this interesting insight of jobs in our communities. This book includes a glossary; index; questions with answers; a list of books for more information: and
web sites for further research.

This story of finding a special gift full of inspiration, a gift from the heart, for her mother, Celeste rides on the wind of her dreams into the sky. She rides on the wind and finds such patience and kindness from the sun, moon, and the stars she simply sparkles with delight all through the night. At last it occurs to her the perfect gift was in her flower garden the whole time.

This book is not so much about octopuses* as it is about how the information about octopuses is gathered. At first, this is a little disappointing because the word “Octopus” is in fact larger on the front cover of the book than the word “Scientist”. Plus, there is a photograph of an octopus filling the front cover space. The big colorful photographs of the underwater creatures entice the reader to explore the small font text set around them in three columns. This is not a book many intermediate grade readers would choose to read, but definitely would choose to look through.

Information about octopuses is scattered throughout the book, as it is revealed by the scientists in their long time intensive search for the information. If nothing else, this book demonstrates the slowness of science research. The research team most be formed. The team in this case is well-rounded:  a psychologist, an environmentalist, a behavioral ecologist, and an underwater photographer, all with scuba skills. They want “to find how octopuses decide what to eat… while avoiding being eaten themselves.” (4) They spend much of their time looking for the right locations. Noting where there are octopuses, as well as where there aren’t octopuses. They want two sites for comparison, and a possible third site. Searching for the sites takes up much of their allotted time in this distant location. “For most of our first week, it’s been two steps forward and one-step back–promise and revelation, then disappointment. True, we’re making progress. But it’s been punctuated with frustration.” (38)

Their first study location contains 3 octopuses. The group goes through their protocol and procedures. They survey the habitat, administer the ‘personality test’, and identify the remains of the prey consumed. They will eventually be doing this at the other two sites, all while working underwater. Being underwater has its own problems. Salt water is corrosive to their gear, sound travels faster through water and your hearing is muffled, objects appear larger under water, you have no sense of smell, and you and your work are being jostled by the sea surge.

• *” The plural of octopus is not octopi… it is incorrect because it mixes up two languages. Octopus is a Greek word… Adding i to the end of a singular noun is a Latin practice.” (11)

If you have small children of your own, you may have experienced their feelings at new situations. Author, Ana Crespo, has taken these experiences one at a time and written about them from a small child’s point-of-view in her “My Emotions and Me”  series of  books. On the front cover of each book in the top right-hand corner, there is a ‘Mood-o-Meter’ with the emotion this particular story will be exploring. In J.P. and the Polka-Dotted Aliens,  the emotion is that of being mad.

Little J.P. is happily playing with his monkey mask, in the park on the spaceship big toy, until two little girls in polka-dotted dresses come along. Then, he is mad. J.P. does not like the little girls invading his space, who he sees as polka-dotted blobs, decorating his spaceship with flowers. “I almost screamed. I was so mad,” says J.P. as he stomps his feet. “Then I remembered I am a fun monkey.” Soon the monkey and the aliens are getting along. “We had a fancy outer-space tea party.”

This book could be used by an adult and a child to open up a discuss on being upset, to recall with a child when he was upset and how it was resolved, and because it is written at such a beginning reading level it could be read again and again by the child himself.

Pre-schoolers and young children can transition from being mad to happy again in a short amount of time. Ana Crespo includes her own take on this in “A Note to Parents and Teachers from the Author.” This is taken from her own life experiences and research she has done. She states she is not a behavior specialist of any kind.

If you have small children of your own, you have experienced their feelings at new situations. Author, Ana Crespo, has taken these experiences one at a time and written about them from a small child’s point-of-view in her “My Emotions and Me”  series of  books. On the front cover of each book in the top right-hand corner, there is a ‘Mood-o-Meter’ with the emotion this particular story will be exploring. In J.P. and the Giant Octopus, the emotion is that of being scared.

Little J.P. has never ridden through a drive-thru car wash. Since there is a large octopus on the car wash’s sign and J.P. has been playing about being a shark, J.P. imagines the darkness inside the car wash is part of the ocean. He imagines the flexible scrubbing arms inside the car wash as those of a giant octopus. Fear and terror fill J.P. as his view of the world is covered up with the foaming soap, scrubbing arms, and the scritching scratching sounds. “I almost cried. I was so scared.”  With the loving support of his pet dog sitting next to him,  J.P. states, ” Then I remembered I am a brave shark. I showed my big shark teeth… I made some sharky sounds.” Soon the ride was over. “The giant octopus just wanted to play.”

This book could be used by an adult and a child to open up a discussion on fear, to recall with a child when he is fearful, and because it is written at such a beginning reading level it can be read again and again by the child himself.

Ana Crespo includes her own take on this in “A Note to Parents and Teachers from the Author.” This is taken from her own life experiences and research she has done. She states she is not a behavior specialist of any kind.

Leigh Walls cover illustration of a Cretaceous mosasaur swimming with its mouthful of pointed teeth grabs the viewers attention and screams, “Pick up this book!” I did. I had a hard time putting it down. Dinosaurs are to time travel as Jurassic Park is to Time Machine. What a combination. Hasn’t every dinosaur loving person always wanted to see a real living breathing dinosaur? Here is a book to live just that life vicariously!

It all begins with “Great-Grandpa Pierson, nicknamed ‘Mad Jack’, invents a Chronal Engine”… (time machine), but it can only be operated by remote control. Nate and Brady’s father has “spent most of his days and nights working on it and obsessing over it.” (3) The remote is called a Recall Device and Nate and Brady stumble across one in 1985 (their present time) and active it, traveling back to the Cretaceous Era.

Now the story goes back and forth being told first by Nate and then by Max. Max is Nate’s nephew from our present time. Uncle Nate is now a physicist.

Uncle Nate tells Max and his friend Petra,  “I need you to return to the Cretaceous, find me, and help me get back here. To 1985, actually…I can’t tell you a lot…I don’t think you’ll change the past by knowing what you’re going to do…The less you know, the better. (19)

Nate and Brady transported, in a bass boat, to the Cretaceous by the Recall Device. The Recall Device is dropped into the murky water. When Nate dives into the water to find it so they can return home to 1985, he is bitten by a mosasaur.

Meanwhile, Max and Petra have materialized at Mad Jack’s old island Cretaceous getaway. They begin looking for Uncle Nate, when an unknown someone secretly takes their Recall Device.  Then, while Max and Petra are down on the dock Mad Jack’s generator explodes catching the getaway on fire. Max and Petra quickly rescue as much of the stored supplies as they can before the fire consumes the buildings, taking the supplies down to a canoe at the water’s edge.

As Nate and Brady leave the mosasaur area heading for a narrow channel “on a fallen tree that bridged the channel, was a girl.” ( 43) Mildred, a time traveler they do not know, is looking for Max’s sister Emma. ” ‘My father used to work with Mad Jack Pierson but became afraid that he was becoming unstable and that leaving a time machine in his hands was dangerous. So my father sought out a person from the future who was important in the development of Mad Jack’s Chronal Machine.’ “(53) Mildred gets into the bass boat. Off in the distance they see the smoke from the burning getaway and head toward it.

Max and Petra are paddling their canoe when they encounter triceratops in the water. Their canoe cap-sizes, but they are able to rescue most of the canned food they’d brought from the getaway. Then, they see the bass boat and flag it down.  Brady and Max, two generations of Pierson, enjoy their banter back and forth about the dinosaurs they are encountering. The group decides to find a safe place off of the river to spend the night because it is getting dark. They build a fire in part to cook a fish that Nate has caught earlier in the day and to ward off dinosaurs in the night. They take turns standing watch. Talk around the fire is hard for Max because he is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to tell his Uncle Brady what he knows about Brady’s future. In Max’s future, Uncle Brady has already died. Will Max change the course of history if he tells Brady about his death and Brady then chooses a different path? For now, Max won’t tell Brady anything about the future.  In the morning, both groups, now one, take-off to find great great grandfather’s steamboat which should have a Recall Device on it. Otherwise, they are all trapped in the Cretaceous.

Anyone who has ever been out in the wild knows that anything can happen and often will happen. So it goes as Max, Petra, Nate, Brady and Mildred travel down river in the bass boat.  A herd of hadrosaurs begin to cross the river only to fall prey to the alligator-like deinosuchus in a feeding frenzy. Soon the bass boat and its occupants are being knocked around, when Max and Mildred get thrown from the boat. They make it to shore, but loose sight of the bass boat, which now has a damaged propeller, as well. The two groups each try to establish a plan to rejoin, but which group is further up river? If that isn’t bad enough, a T. rex shows up in Max and Mildred’s path. Max and Mildred are able to back away from the T. rex when a Deinosuchus distracts the T. rex.

Back on the river, Nate, Brady, and Petra come across a VW Beetle left in the Cretaceous on Max and Petra’s last trip there.  Night is falling, each group makes a bonfire to use to cook with, frighten away dinosaurs, and as a signal for the other group. Nate, Brady, and Petra will be walking in the morning because they have discovered a leak in the bass boat. It is now sinking.

Mildred’s true colors emerge after she and Max find the steamboat. On board the steamboat is “a prototype large-scale Recall Device”. (130) Mildred hits Max over the head with a piece of driftwood, then uses the Recall Device without him. Max finds a USB flash drive in the backpack he’s been carrying. It triggers a memory of the VW Beetle, which has a USB drive, and Max sets off to find the VW. He comes across an ankylosaur waving its club-like tail,  he skirts around  it only to find 2 Nanotyrannus. Just as Max gets out of their range, he runs SMACK into Brady, Nate, and Petra.

Back together again, Petra leads the way back to the VW Beetle, Max uses the USB flash drive, and finds directions to a Recall Device. Knowing where the Recall Device is doesn’t mean it will be easy to return back to the present. There are still T. rex to deal with and Nate’s injured leg is giving out, plus he has a fever. Finally, they make it to the Recall Device. When they activate it, it disappears without them.  A T. rex once again has them in its sights. “At that moment, there was a flash of light and a booming sound. In the middle of the creek bed, axle deep in water, a Hummer appeared and turned, blocking the giant theropod’s path. Grandpa Pierson’s Hummer.” (165) Kyle gets them into the Hummer and back to the present.

The story doesn’t end there because Nate needs to get to a hospital,  the T. rex is transported to the present along with the Hummer, there is an old letter from Mildred yet to be read, and one from Uncle Brady, as well.

There may just be another story brewing from great great grandpa Pierson’s Chronal Engine. Readers will just have to wait and see.

This cute picture book is inspired by the traditional rhyme “This Little Piggy Went to Market.”  The repetitive text will appeal to young readers.  The pattern of text starts with Piggy doing daily tasks such as shopping, partying, riding, and skating.  The second Piggy always stays home and is illustrated doing a domestic task.  The third Piggy always “had” some object.  The fourth Piggy always “had none.” The fifth piggy went “all the way home”.  Some terms such as “posting” and “dining” are not familiar for young American children, yet this is a fun and engaging picture book.

Covering a mix of United States and International as well as male and female players, this nonfiction text recounts of some of the stars of soccer in the last 60 years.  The chapters feature 2 women, 3 US players and 2 international players.  In addition, other records are shared in the sidebars and fun facts at he end of the book.  The text assumes the reader has a basic understanding of soccer strategy and concepts.  Contains Table of Contents, Fun Facts, Glossary, Additional Resources, and Index