Starting with Earth’s atmosphere and moving outward through our solar system to the Universe, this book covers the huge topic of space. The book attempts the difficult task of introducing complex concepts to young readers and does not quite succeed.  For example, the parts of the sun and atmosphere are labeled as if they are significant, but not description is included.  The diameter and orbit period of all the planets are highlighted in the solar system spread, but the terms diameter and orbit period are never defined.  Because of these shortcomings, comprehension for young readers would be limited to rote recall and opportunities to develop deeper understanding and draw connections would be lost.

Text and graphics are visually appealing.  Contains table of contents, limited glossary and no index.

The Super Simple Body series celebrates your amazing body.  With simple text, photographs, illustrations, and activities, this book describes the types of muscles, how muscles work, and the essential role of muscles play in everyday activities.

Pronunciation of anatomical terms are in parenthesis following the word.  Visuals include photographs and detailed illustrations with labels.  Limited glossary and no Index.

Wagari was a Kenyan trailblazer for women’s rights and the environment.  Growing up in rural Kenya, she was one of the few women in her country to read, let alone graduate from high school.  Wagari continued her education in the United States before returning to a newly independent Kenya.  Upon her return, she was devastated to see the scarcity of trees and animals.  She strongly believed her mother’s teaching that a tree is worth more than its wood.  Her efforts in environmental advocacy and towards peaceful democracy were internationally recognized in 2004 when she was the first African woman to be award the Nobel Peace Prize.

The text is reminiscent of African oral storytelling traditions.  This beautifully illustrated book concludes with photographs and a timeline with highlights of Wagari Muta’s life and Kenyan milestones.

Even a gray city can come alive when art is shared.  Mira loved art and she shared pieces of her art and through her art, her joy with her neighborhood making it a little less gray.  Then Mira met a man with a pocket full of paintbrushes, a muralist who showed her how to infuse the neighborhood with energy and light by adding color and meaning to walls.  As Mira and her neighbors painted their songs onto the walls, the community celebrated together and the color spread to utility boxes, benches and even the sidewalks.  Together they created something beautiful. And so the book invites us spread something beautiful, for the world is our canvas and we are all artists.

A Note from the Authors explains the book is based on the true story of the East Village neighborhood in San Diego, California and Rafael and Candice López.  The husband and wife team were instrumental in transforming their community into the artistically vibrant community it is today.  The illustrator, Rafael López was the inspiration for the character of the muralist.  López has created community-based murals around the world.

Set in South Korea, the origin story of Yumi’s jumoni (Korean Lunar New Year blessing pouch) is rooted in family.  Grandma cut her beautiful red silk wedding gown to make blankets for her children.  As her kids grew up, grandma made red vest and a quilt from the pieces.  Grandma then used the red silk of her vest to make Yumi’s blessing pouch.  The gift of the blessing pouch includes the gift of intergenerational family memories.  Grandma’s Red Silk Dress brings to mind the Yiddish folktale of a coat worn out and repurposed again and again until it is a handkerchief.  Used together, these stories provide authentic cultural and familial perspectives.

As part of a math series, the purpose of this title is to demonstrate the concept of whole and parts.  In the instruction of fractions, the unequal parts described in the story would confuse the concept rather than clarify for young learners.

A Tower of Giraffes introduces collective nouns for animals with intriguing artwork and interesting information on the social behaviors of a wide variety of animals. To this information Wright adds flavor with fun language such as her description of a flamboyance of flamingos; “There fancy feathered friends work together to make theatrical displays by posing like ballerinas and marching in time.”  Headings are in artistic cursive that will be difficult for many younger readers, though this book will shine as a read aloud.

This is a silly tale of three characters, Eenie, Meenie, and Harold.  Harold was supposedly in the bathroom when Meenie discovers a sword, then a shield and then a helmet in the stove.  Eenie is mellowdramatic about the whole series of events, even after Meenie starts to suggest that maybe the items are actually Harold’s, but he can’t quite put 1+1 +1 together.  In the end, the dragon gets them all, which was a surprising resolution that little boys might satisfaction with.   Illustrations slightly are reminiscent of the David Shannon books.  You medieval fans will flock to The Sword in the Stove.

My Dog Spot could become a classic for generations.  The simplicity of the illustrations and text make it accessible for preschool students through the recommended age of 8.  The tan-textured, recycled paper background for every page present uniformity and focus for the illustrations of the dog and his activities.  For librarians, this would lend itself to call and response because of the repetition of “My dog Spot…” throughout.  Spot is black and white, smaller than some but larger than others.  He likes to do all of the classic activities a dog likes to do.  I envision this text selling well with millennials who pine for suburbia while acting like they are tres chic.  The heart-felt preface written by the authors’ son just makes one smile.  Recommended as a gift and for all libraries.

As this presidential draws near, I remember my mother working at our local polling place. Until I read this book, I never realized my mother would have remembered when women gained the right to vote in a national election in 1920.  STORIES OF WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE: Votes for Women tells of five women, in particular, who diligently worked over a fifty year period to gain this right for women.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton began her work prior to the Civil War when many laws were unfavorable towards women. First she worked as an abolitionist before moving into women’s rights. In 1851, she met Susan B. Anthony and began collaborating with her. During the Civil War Elizabeth helped the abolitionists as she could. Then after the war, “Elizabeth and many other campaigners for women’s rights to vote became frustrated as more people began to support the right of black men to vote. Elizabeth refused to support the vote for black men only, instead demanding that this right should be extended to black and white women, too.” (22)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony made a good team. Elizabeth liked working behind the scenes and Susan liked being out in front of the crowd. Elizabeth was the mother of seven children, while Susan never married. Susan traveled around the country giving speeches. She was very good at strategy, such as, scheduling her talks “just before politicians were due to discuss changes to the law. This got the attention of the newspapers and the lawmakers themselves.” (34) Susan used the 14th and 15th Amendments as the basis of her arguments. In 1872, Susan registered to vote, voted, and was then arrested for voting.

Across the Atlantic Ocean in Britain, Clementina Black was working to improve the lives of poorer working women. Clementina was asking for equal pay for equal work, breaks during the work time, limited hours to a work day, and a legal minimum wage. “Clementina’s work and writing has helped lay the ground for other campaigners for women’s rights, who were ready to give their lives for the right to vote.” (61)

Carrie Chapman Catt married newspaper man Leo Chapman and “became co-editor of the newspaper.”(65) Sometime after Leo’s death, Carrie married a wealthy George Catt who agreed with her views on women’s rights. George, on occasion, spoke for women’s rights with Carrie at rallies. Carrie’s strategy was to get women the right to vote at the state level and then finally get an Amendment to the Constitution.

Emmeline Pankhurst, in Britain, saw that peaceful protests were not achieving the results women wanted. Her motto was, “Deeds, not words.” She wanted the issues in front of the public everyday, in every way, even if it meant chaining women to fences shouting about women’s suffrage, so they couldn’t be removed and arrested.

Britain’s women could vote by 1918, if they were 30 years old, which changed to 21 years old in 1928. In the United States, the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, though women in varying states could vote on local issues before then. Washington state women could vote by 1910.

These longer bios are followed by five one page mini-bios on: Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul, Millicent Fawcett, Annie Kenney, and Emily Davison.

Then, there is a timeline, Facthound.com, glossary, and index.

I’m a fan of this whole series.  They both share the real-time science currently being investigated and studied in different parts of the world (in this case about sea turtles), and also share about the life and work of the scientists themselves.  Illustrated with full-color photographs, they offer readers a chance to be fascinated by creatures they didn’t know were fascinating, and they also inform students about career possibilities in the sciences.  This one does a particularly good job of communicating the dangers faced by the leatherback sea turtles, and efforts being made to help them, while also making clear that there is still much that is still unknown.

I’m a fan of this whole series.  They both share the real-time science currently being investigated and studied in different parts of the world (in this case about octopuses), and also share about the life and work of the scientists themselves.  Illustrated with full-color photographs, they offer readers a chance to be fascinated by creatures they didn’t know were fascinating, and they also inform students about career possibilities in the sciences.

It’s shiny and attractive.  They had good graphic designers working on this series, and they include lots of bright color photos so that if you just pick it up and flip through the pages it looks like it’s going to be really interesting.  But it’s not.  It’s got all the basic information.  But it reads like a textbook, with absolutely no effort put into the writing in terms of making any of this information sound interesting, let alone enchanting, as the series title claims.

It’s shiny and attractive.  They had good graphic designers working on this series, and they include lots of bright color photos so that if you just pick it up and flip through the pages it looks like it’s going to be really interesting.  But it’s not.  It’s got all the basic information.  But it reads like a textbook, with absolutely no effort put into the writing in terms of making any of this information sound interesting, let alone enchanting, as the series title claims.

According to the flap on the back of the dust jacket, both author and illustrator are award-winners in their fields.  But picture books depend upon the story and the illustrations supporting each other and enhancing each other, but in this case they don’t.  The pictures really don’t seem to even fit the story.  The story’s not bad on its own.  It opens with a little girl describing her perfect pet to her parents (soft and cuddly and quick and strong, able to both fly and swim, able to shrink so small it can hide anywhere, and also to grow big enough to protect her).  After her parents tell her such a pet does not exist, she goes to bed and meets her perfect pet, and enjoys a whole night of adventures with it.  The illustrations, though kind of cool in their own right, don’t fit the story:  when the words say the creature is soft and cuddly, it looks rather sharp and geometric; when the words describe it’s sparkling eyes, the illustrations don’t support that, the wings that are described as broad and beautiful appear rather small and stubby.

If you are going to buy it for your library, you’ve got to be prepared to buy the whole series, and warn your patrons that this is most definitely the kind of series that one really needs to read in order.  This book alone does not stand on its own feet — it’s more like a mid-season episode of a TV series.  The reader who picks this up to read without having read the earlier books must constantly work at piecing together what’s going on, always well aware that there’s more they don’t know.  That being said, the action is good, the themes of good v. evil (and trying to figure out which is which) are good, the characters seem likeable (though not terribly well-developed in this title alone).

The characters are likable and believable, and facing issues a lot of kids would relate to:  feeling dumb because of school struggles.  For the kids who can’t personally relate, this book is the kind of story that will give them insight into struggles that others face, and help them develop empathy.  The one element of the story that I, as a teacher, did not find believable was that Ally, a fifth grader, has up until now managed to keep all of the adults in her life from knowing that she can’t read.  Though there might have been a time when students could hide such things by acting out like Ally does, our educational world has become so driven by testing data, that there’s no way she would now be in a new school for even a month without someone conducting a reading fluency test.  But kids aren’t going to clue into that, and many may like to think that others are in the dark.  The best thing about this book is that it makes it really clear that Ally is smart, despite her dyslexia.

It’s the second book in a series (and by the looks of things, the middle book of a trilogy), but it reads decently, even if one hasn’t read the first book.  It’s obvious to the reader that there is history among the characters, which might encourage someone who likes this one to go back and read the other, but there’s enough explanation offered so that this book stands okay on its own, without leaving the reader constantly trying to fill holes to figure out what’s going on.  It’s set in late-nineteenth-century London.  The main character, Jem, is a young boy on his own, trying to make his way in the world however he can.  Jem becomes aware that there’s been a rash of children going missing, all within the same neighborhood, and he enlists the help of expert bogler, Alfred, dragging him out of retirement, and offering his services as bogler’s boy, which basically translates as bogle bait.  The team must put themselves in danger and figure out why there have been so many bogles in such close quarters (apparently highly unusual behavior for bogles) in order to save the city from this plague.  It’s engaging, and just scary enough.

Most people totally take for granted the food that arrives in their grocery story.  They also probably feel that their store gives them a large variety of fruits, vegetables and grains.  But many, many facts in The Story of Seeds will surprise readers and more than likely push them to try new varieties that are offered and/or buy from farmer’s markets and co-ops.  Only 150 of the 12,000 plant species are grown for sale in the world today.  Because of this, seed varieties have gone extinct.  This book examines both the factors that have led to this condition as well as the pioneers in cultivation and preservation that are trying to retain what we have left.  Who would have thought that seeds were a goal for capture in World War II?  Would one believe that there is a Doom’s Day Seed Vault in a mountain in Norway?  There is much to be said to the complexity of the world of seeds.  This book would be fabulous for a student wanting to research a unique topic.

Henry has the perfect life, or so it seems.  Born into the riches of Medina (aka land of Bill Gates and friends), he has made all the right moves to prepare himself for  Harvard Law School and a career as a politician.  With girlfriend Catharine by his side, this power couple couldn’t be stopped—until dark eyed, dark haired Anne Boylen crashes into their lives.  Henry’s whole being flips out whenever Anne appears.  There’s nothing he can do to stop his passion for everything that is different about Anne.  Though Anne is not the type of person who will bend over  to fit into a new crowd, to please Henry she is led into situations that totally compromise her.  The constant tension in the book is whether they will make it through together or apart.  A play on the love story of the real Henry VIII and Anne Boylen, readers can wonder how far the author will stray from history while being whipped up in some over the top lusty lines.  There is no outright sex but foreplay abounds.  Some will see this as too “oh, my” while others will drink it up like they did for Bella and Edward.  It could be a fun addition to most high school libraries.

At first glance you might think this is a picture book for grade schoolers, but you’d be wrong. Oh, small children might sit still while you read it to them, but on a deeper level, this is an allegory poking fun at uneducated, simple people.

The story is told in three parts. Part one, the LEEKS, tells about how uneventful a leek’s life is in the vegetable garden. So, when a cow comes along telling them he is Santa they get very excited. The cow invites them to come home with him. “The leeks line up, orderly and disciplined, and one after the other they squeeze through the fence.” Right into the waiting cow’s mouth.

In part two, the CARROTS, in the garden are laughing at the leeks and their demise. Then the carrots begin to worry the reindeer might come and eat them, too. After long discussion where nothing is accomplished, one carrot suggests digging a tunnel a escape from the reindeer. The plan is carried out in teams. The carrots’ tunnel soon runs into a colony of bats. At first the carrots are worried the bats might eat them, but the bats are friendly. The bats are going to a party. The carrots ask if they can come along. No problem. The bats and carrots emerge from the tunnel in a warren full of wild rabbits.

In part three, MIXED VEGETABLES, off in another section of the garden a leek named Romeo finds a carrot named Julienne. They spend their nights whispering together, away from the other vegetables, until one dawn they are discovered. The Leeks are against the Carrots and vice versa. Then the other vegetables from the garden get involved in the insults. Romeo and Julienne sneak away.The vegetable garden is a battle zone. The gardener sees the aftermath and turns the smashed vegetables into soup. And the cow and a rabbit enjoy Romeo and Julienne.

Perceval Barrier’s illustrations are all done in varying shades of orange and green with cartoon conversation bubbles, in addition to the regular text.

Scooby and the gang spend the week at the Tumblewee Ranch.  The owner, Slim Jim, explained to them that someone was stealing his best horses.  Of course Scooby and the gang offer to help solve the problem and as a cover they join a rodeo clown class.  It is no surprise that Shaggy and Scooby are naturals when it comes to goofing around.  Shaggy and Scooby put their rodeo skills to good use and catch the horse thief.  The story follows the standard Scooby mystery story line and is sure to capture the interest of Scooby fans.

The twins Carlos and Carmen are tired of all the rain and can’t wait to go outside again to play. They’re thrilled when they wake up and the rain has stopped.  When they look outside, however, they find their yard covered in water.  The twins make the most of this unexpected development by jumping, spashing, and playing in the water until they are muddy and soaked.  Knowing they can’t go inside in such a messy state, they call their Mom outside.  Instead of being upset, their parents join in the fun, turning an inflatable mattress into a home-made water slide.  They made up for 3 days of rain with a week’s worth of fun in one morning.

These Hispanic characters intersperse the text with short phrases in Spanish. All Spanish terms and phrases are translated into English in the back of the book.  A fun engaging story with energetic characters that is sure to interest young readers.

This title introduces the reader to the land, animals and culture of Bangladesh.  By focusing on the uniqueness, strengths, and challenges of living in Bangladesh the book provides students a good opportunity to find connections and notice differences with their own life.  Maps, graphs, fun facts and vivid colorful photographs help to keep the reader engaged.

Contains Table of Contents, Fast Facts, Glossary, Learn More and Index.  A level 5 Blastoff Reader.

To take care of his or her amazing body, a child needs to eat well, keep moving, fight germs, enjoy fresh air, stay clean, and sleep well.  This title separates these concepts into individual chapters.  The large, easy-to-read text is organized into short segments on each set of pages. Images are colorful and engaging.  This is a good title for young independent readers needing short texts.

Contains Table of Contents and Glossary of bold terms, but lacks an Index.

Also in the series Looking After Me: How Do We Move?; Going to the Doctor; and Going to the Dentist.

Sixteen tales of trailblazing homesteaders, entrepreneurs and fable-rousers who overcame the hardships of the 1840’s coming west and settling.  The stories are researched through diaries, journals, letters and written songs.   Excellent for women’s studies, or history of the west.  Includes notes for each chapter, bibliography and index.