This informational book introduces basic facts about Jupiter such as its location to the sun, orbit around the sun, the speed of its spin, size, and more. Each page spread contains a full page photo that supports the information stated. Although this book is basic, the facts stated are very interesting and thought provoking. This book contains a table of contents, more facts page, glossary, index and a publisher sponsored web address.

This informational book describes the physical characteristics, habitat, and behavior of rabbits. Full page, color photos accompany each page spread demonstrating the information being reported.

The art of storytelling is celebrated as a life-giving force in this enthralling picture book set in Morocco.

A nameless, thirsty boy meets a storyteller and is drawn to return day after day to listen to intricately linked stories and to learn the older man’s art. The stories bring not only sustenance to the boy’s inner life, but water to his lips, for in this world, storytelling and water are symbolically connected. Stories will ward off the great drought if the Sahara encroaches on the cities, but only if young people keep the tradition alive. And so, in the manner of Scheherazade, the stories unfold, and the protagonist retells the story of the boy who saved the city from the sandstorm that arrived as a large djinn by telling him a story, day by day. The life force of cool blue water appears in the illustrations, the antithesis of the destructive brown sand. Beautiful swirls of blue dominate many of the intricately bordered double-page spreads, fighting against the tans and browns of the djinn and the sands he represents. Each spread takes on a life of its own, sometimes highly geometric, other times full of swiftly crayon-drawn individuals, and still others with heavily inked and outlined figures.  Vibrant picture book!

In 1843, fourteen-year-old Hanson Gregory left his family home in Rockport, Maine, and set sail as a cabin boy on the schooner Achorn, looking for high-stakes adventure on the high seas. Little did he know that a boatload of hungry sailors, coupled with his knack for creative problem-solving, would yield one of the world’s most prized and beloved pastries.  Lively and inventive cut-paper illustrations add a taste of whimsy to this sweet, fact-filled story that includes an extensive bibliography, author’s note, and timeline.  Kirsch’s charming watercolor collages liberally employ round motifs: on many spreads, the circular illustration on the right page is “cut” from the left, freeing up a circle of white space for text. Endpapers sport scores of holey doughnuts, many decorated nautically. Miller shares the true story of the invention of the doughnut with the hole in its center. Delicious!

When a troop of lemurs awakes, the lemur king urges them to, “follow me, follow me, follow me,” as he leads them on an energetic exploration of the things they can do.  The repetitive text reinforces this energy as it is molded around the illustrations.  Their motion comes to a quick and emphatic stop when their path leads them to a large crocodile.  The lemur king urges the troop to follow as he flees to safety and then finally to a much earned rest in their tree.

With its mischievous lemurs and rhythmic rhyming text, this makes a great read aloud that kids will want to read again and again.

This new series – Piper Morgan- will fill a niche for those girls where there is a working mother with no father in the picture.

Piper is a 6 or 7 year old girl who loves to please. Piper wants to make friends, but Piper often jumps to conclusions about the new people she meets. Sometimes she is right and sometimes she is not. Piper’s mother works hard at her job, but her jobs never last very long. “My mom’s new job was as an assistant. That means she takes care of stuff for people. A person will send her jobs to take care of stuff for people, but the jobs are only temporary … For now, we were going to live with the traveling circus people.” (3) So begins the first book in this series.

While Piper’s mother is working, Piper becomes part of the ‘Little Explores’ section of the circus. The Little Explorers are the young children of the circus staff and performers. The Little Explorers do little acts between the major circus acts in the rings. Piper is to be a dancer along with the other Little Explorers. On her first night, she forgets her dance steps, then falls on another dancer, causing a domino affect of fallen dancers. The other Little Explorers are upset with Piper, but Big Top Bubba explains to all the children mistakes happen all the time. Circus is family and family helps each other. Big Top Bubba then has Lexie become Piper’s mentor.

Piper is set for the next performance. This time April starts the Little Explorers’ dance too soon, but the others follow her. Everyone’s timing is off. Piper starts doing cartwheels. Then, she bumps into a clown, who bumps into a dog act, who bumps into another act. The audience loves the chaos that follows as Piper tries to catch the dogs that are now out of control. The other Little Explorers help, too. The show most go on. Soon everything is back to normal.

Then, mom’s job is over and Piper leaves the circus. Stay tuned for book two in this new series.

Author, Stephanie Faris, has placed “Fairground Facts” trivia at the end of each of the ten chapters. Illustrator, Lucy Fleming, has two or three soft pencil drawings intermixed throughout each chapter. These sketches often show just the right facial expressions.

This “Ready-to-Read” book is chuck full of photos from the latest 2016 Ghostbuster movie.  That is one way to get reluctant readers to open a book up and read. This a an informational book introducing the ghostbusters and their work to the reader. Each of the five ghostbusters is given a two page mini bio: Abby, Erin, Holtsmann, Patty, and Kevin. One page being a photo with the opposite page being a description of her or his work. It is very tongue-in-cheek: ” When you hire the Ghosterbusters, we’ll bring the very latest in ghostbusting equipment. (Not the safest, but the latest.)” (18) On and on it sings the praises of the ghostbusters and what they do to help keep their community safe from ghosts.

There is not much meat to this book, but it is fun.

In Westaway’s first picture book, originally published in Australia, a whale has invaded the bathtub of a boy named Bruno; worse, it isn’t even an especially nice whale. “You could have knocked!” says the cetacean before shooing Bruno out of the bathroom. Bruno tries to explain the situation to his family, but no one believes him. “A “shower” courtesy of the whale’s blowhole keeps Bruno from getting in trouble for not bathing, though, as his mother notes, “You smell a bit fishy!” While there isn’t much of a story line, illustrator Jellett makes the most of the improbable situation, filling the bathroom with bubbles and white spray to emphasize the mess the whale is making and using crayonlike red scribbles on Bruno’s cheeks to highlight his growing irritation. Good, clean fun!

Very real story, addressing a very typical challenge to friendship:  Paula, the beaver, and Maggie, the elephant, have been friends their whole lives.  Paul tells about all the fun things they’ve done together and all the nice things Maggie does for her.  But Veronica doesn’t agree. Veronica is an indeterminate animal, but based on her behavior, I’m deciding she’s a weasel.  Veronica whispers to Paula that she thinks Maggie is too big.  Paula knows she should stick up for Maggie, but makes the decision to play with Veronica and her posse, and ignores her life-long friend (but the illustrations make it clear she’s not comfortable with her choices.  Despite Paula turning her back on Maggie, when Veronica turns on Paula, Maggie comes charging to the rescue, proving that she’s a true friend, no matter what.  The illustrations alone show the hurt and contrition and forgiveness that are needed to mend the friendship after it’s been damaged, leading to the hopeful ending declaring that they’ll be friends forever.

I LOVE this book! The illustrations are simple, yet really charming and sweet.  The story is one every child can relate to:  it’s a whole series of things that Aberdeen didn’t mean to do, but circumstances keep leading him a little farther from home on an adventure that starts with following a red balloon that floated by.  Before he knows it, he’s alone and lost and it’s getting dark.  When Mom comes and finds him, he apologizes and says he didn’t mean to worry her.  Mom hugs him tight, and tells him she knows he didn’t mean to.  But he did.  I think it does a fabulous job of recognizing that very human experience of creating unintended consequences that wasn’t really what we meant to do, while also getting in that reminder that we need to acknowledge those consequences, whether or not it’s what we meant to do.

It’s basically a celebration of kids spending a day with Dad.  The illustrations and words work together to honor ordinary everyday delights, like pancake breakfasts and running errands and playing in the park and building forts and reading stories, while giving them some fun alligator twists (a fish tail sticking out of the pancake, bathtub letters spelling out, “swamp,” etc.)

The illustrations are fun, colorful, childlike cartoons.  The story is convoluted.  It starts out with a knight who rode away, but then the teller of the story remembers he didn’t actually have a horse, so he changes his mind and says that he strode away.  It continues is this manner — every time something is said to have happened, the narrator changes his mind and says it was really something else.  It rhymes more or less, but is still awkward to read.

It’s a bedtime story a little bit reminiscent of Goodnight Moon, but in a softer, more lyrical sort of way.  And instead of saying goodnight to the things in the room, the young boy and his friend are walking around the whole farm/household watching as the world settles into night.  There are only a few words per page, with lots of repetition and rhyme.  The illustrations set a quiet bedtime mood.  It’s sweet.

I’ve read several books in this series, and I keep being disappointed.  They have a really good designer who has created a layout that makes for an attractive book to sit on the shelf, or pick up and flip through.  The covers are shiny.  There are lots of attractive color photos.  I just wish they’d paid more attention to the most effective communication of information.  These are dull and basically read like textbooks — a general overview of all the pertinent information on a very shallow level.  They miss so many opportunities to use the photos in a more effective manner:  when they are describing unusual fruits or animals specific to the country, likely to be completely unfamiliar to students from other parts of the world, photos would have been highly appropriate.

The illustrations are really cute.  The story is okay.  Edgar is a mouse who loves to build things from the food scraps he finds, but his best friend Toby keeps eating his creations, so he heads off to go where he will be appreciated, only to find mice everywhere keep eating his creations.  He heads home dejected, but finds a gift from Toby — his own set of inedible building blocks.  It’s fine, but I’m thinking the solution to the problem seemed a bit obvious.