Finding What’s Real is the sequel to Escaping Perfect and does not stand alone, as it picks up right after the first book ends, and the plot continues where it left off. The main character, teenager Cecilia Montgomery, who was on the run for two weeks to escape her overbearing politician mother, has returned to her hometown. She misses the anonymity she enjoyed in the small town, but there is no way she can escape back to that life. Not now that her mother has announced that she is running for the presidency of the United States.

Now Cecilia is not only trapped with her mother, but surrounded by those who may be false friends, liking her only due to her family fame.

I wasn’t that impressed with the first book, and find the second one similarly predictable.  Young Adults readers may enjoy the drama, but I wasn’t enthralled with either book.

A young boy feels his drawings of puppies look like mush and his cars look like lumps or boxes.  Since he doesn’t believe he can draw, he colors instead.  Unlike coloring in a coloring book, he just uses different hues and lines to express feelings.  Until the last page the boy is a grayscale pencil sketch. With the self-portrait on the last page, the boy appears in color showing the uniqueness and depth of his feelings.

A wonderful resource for art teachers, young artists, or to teach self-acceptance.

The curtain opens on the Great Aziz and his beautiful assistant, Zaza and with a flick of a wand he turns a dish into a fish – a wiggling, slippery fish his assistant has to catch.  And so the show progresses with the Great Aziz creating havoc with his magic and Zaza cleaning up the mess.  Finally when Zaza’s wig is turned into a pig, she loses her patience and snatches Aziz’s wand and turns his hat into a bat. Back and forth the wand is snatched until the beans are turned into bears and Aziz and Zaza realize they need to work together.  Aziz pulls out a card and turns it into a cord that they use to tie up the bears.  From then on Zaza and Aziz share the light each night.

The fun play of words throughout make this book an engaging read aloud.  Use it to start a lesson on word ladders or to reinforce word families.

In the hip-hop spirit of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical, Hamilton, David Elliot has crafted a reimagining of the myth of the Minotaur voiced in poetic forms by those that influenced the tragic life of Asterion, a gentle intelligent boy born with the head of a bull and the body of a man, whom his mother calls Ruler of the Stars.

He is destroyed by Poseidon, King of the Sea, whose fury at Minos, King of Crete leads him to manipulate Daedalus, The Royal Engineer; Pasiphae, Asterion’s mother the Queen of Crete; and Ariadne, Asterion’s half-sister, into the cruelty and abandonment that drives Asterion into final madness as he becomes the beast of myth, ultimately destroyed by Theseus.

This format makes Bull a fast but deeply memorable read, forever casting new light upon the making of a monster and the culpability of gods and humans in so doing.  Elliot gives an elucidating description of the poetic forms chosen for each character and delves into the origins of Asterion’s birth, something previous tellings of the myth do not include.  It’s also noteworthy to say that there is strong language and imagery at times, thus the target audience is probably the upper grades in high school and into college.  Recommended.

In book two of this series, the war continues with between the robots. Erin and Nick are two human children raised by robot parents. Erin and Nick, with Ava and Jackson, the illegal robot children in which the parents made, take their robot parents on the run to escape from the killer robots. The family arrives in the forest near a maze of caves where they meet Lida Mae.

The robot father connects to the internet which allows the killer robots to track their location. When the robots come for the family, the parents shut down so they can’t be tracked which leaves the kids on the run through the caves. They discover a cavern that is for robots only. Ava connects and learns there are baby robots in the cave that have the ability to grow as humans do. Eventually the killer robots surround the kids within the cave and prepare to kill everyone, human and robot. However, Erin comes up with a plan to connect her robot sister, Ava, to a killer robot and reprogram the killer robot with kindness. Because the killer robots are all internet connected, they all reprogram to see the good in the world.

When eight-year-old Anna Wang is given several packets of seeds and a copy of The Secret Garden by an elderly neighbor, she becomes intent on growing a garden of her own in the yard of her family’s new home. She meets Laura, also a new girl in the neighborhood, and together they start the work of plotting the land and turning the soil.  In this prequel to The Year of the Book, you can join Anna in a year of discovery, new beginnings, friendships, and growth.  Patrice Barton’s softly blended monochromatic illustrations match the delicacy of the text. Fans of Anna and Laura’s adventures will enjoy seeing the beginning of the girls’ friendship.

The opening line of text declares, “I love round things.”  And the rest of the text goes on to describe why, and to share different examples of roundness and why it’s to be admired, but there is definitely some artistic license taken with the term “round,” making this more a poetic ode to that which is (at least somewhat) round, rather than a true concept book that sticks to accurate examples of the true geometric term “round.”  Seeds and eggs are used as examples of round, and those pictured are, but not all eggs or seeds are round.  The mushrooms pictured, though rounded on top, are not truly round; neither are the rocks that have been smoothed by the sea.  More detailed paragraphs in the back share why rounded shapes are beneficial to the examples shared, but again the term is used loosely.

I LOVE the illustrations!  They are rich and detailed and evoke a certain fairy-tale element to the setting.  Cleonardo is a young inventory is a family line of inventors, daughter of Geonardo and granddaughter of Leonardo.  With the town’s Grand Festival of Inventions approaching, Cleo is determined to help her father, but though indulgent, he’s a bit dismissive, sending her off out of his way.  With her grandfather’s help, Cleo sets up hr own workshop in the woods to design her own project.  On the day of the great festival, when her dad’s project runs into trouble, it’s Cleo’s inventions that help to save the day, and “From then on father and daughter always worked…side by side.”

With bright, bold, graphic illustrations and rhyming text, this is a good introductory book for young children about different animal traits.  The text in the main body of the book doesn’t even specify the animals in question: some animals wear hair and some animals wear scales…but it’s up to the reader to look at the illustrations for examples of just what animals fit each description.  A good opportunity for letting young students see which animals they can identify by sight.  In the back, brief paragraphs go into more details, naming the animals pictured earlier in the book and explaining why they need the specified trait.  Not dense with information, but still a good introduction.

The text is simple, as is the bright artwork, but the message is profound:  it’s okay to be different, and to be friends with those who don’t fit in with the crowd. Colin is carrot, and so very different than all of Lee’s other pea friends.  But his differences prove to be what allows him to bring unique talents to the group.

An introductory page how animals develop certain traits in order to meet their survival needs.  It specifically describes convergent evolution: when animals who aren’t even related to each other develop the same or similar traits, due to similar environmental needs. Each two-page spread is dedicated to a particular trait, and how two different animals use that trait for survival.  A final paragraph on each page contrasts the two animals, explaining how they can share similar traits even if they’re not actually closely related.  All of this is illustrated with large color photos that support the text well.

The soft illustrations of friendly forest animals trying to encourage and console and help their friend Badger are charming.  And the story is one that so many of us (children and teachers alike) here in the Northwest and relate to — the anxious anticipation in waiting for snow that is not coming.  They come up with all sorts of ideas, from throwing stones at the sky to punch holes in the clouds, to performing a snow dance, to wearing their pajamas backwards.  Nothing seems to work, but throughout Hedgehog keeps trying to remind his friends that crocuses always bloom in spring, and the sun rises every day, and the stars shine every night; though they always come in their own time.  So eventually the band of friends realize that the snow also will come in its own time, and they’ll just have to wait.

The soft and misty nature of the illustrations add to the poetical nature of the telling of the tale of the origins of a house:  the door that was once a colossal oak, the stones that were once underground, the bricks that were once mud, etc.  A useful story to introduce young children to how humans make use of our natural resources.

The illustrations are cute and cartoon-like, and will draw kids in — I mean, with a dragon and giant orange polka-dotted underwear on the cover, it’s gotta be good, right?  The story itself is likely only to appeal to a particular audience of very young children who may find the struggles to dress the dragon reminiscent of scenarios they may have experienced when they were small.  Others drawn by the illustrations may find the story a bit disappointing.

With very simple text, and much repetition, this is a book intended for very young students, celebrating the power of imagination.  It consists of an argument between a duck and a cat, as the cat tries to convince the duck to act like a duck, even though the duck keeps insisting he’s a cat.  The argument wraps up when duck decides to be a parrot, explaining that the day before he was a squirrel and last week he was a rooster, and tomorrow he intends to be a cow. The cat gives up.

Recommended as a satisfying conclusion to a trilogy.  If you’re going to purchase this for your library, you’ll want to get the first two books, How to Catch a Bogle, and A Plague of Bogles, too.  Each book does provide enough context individually so that if a student picks them up out of order they will still make sense.  Set in the streets of England in the days before there were social services available to look after children on their own, these books tell the tales  of street kids who make their way in the world as assistants to a Bogle Hunter, working to clear the sewers and basements of London of the child-snatching bogles terrorizing the town.  It’s dangerous work, and the books are descriptive enough to offer a few goosebumps, but not overly done in the gruesome department.

Megan Atwood’s short novella, Stay in the Game, is riveting from page one. The

overriding theme is that ”Is it okay to do harm for a good motive?” and “Does not knowing the

consequences of an action, make one not responsible?” James is desperate to get medical help

for his dying grandfather. He is contacted by the Benefactor to accomplish 10 tasks with the

possibility of winning 10 million dollars. He is given no information as to the purpose of the

tasks. As he completes each task, he becomes in more aware of the damage he is doing to

innocent people. The story ends with a cliffhanger, setting up for the next book in the series.

The writing is high interest, action packed, fast moving with concise writing and easily

understood vocabulary. An enjoyable read for the reluctant reader or an ELL student. The

cover design seems to imply the book could be about a sport, which is very misleading. Stay in

the Game is a fast, good read that is very appropriate for the YA audience.

This book discusses whether different monsters (Frankenstein, vampires, yetis, sea monsters, etc.) could exist. “If you’re thinking this book will tell you monsters are definitely, no-doubt-about-it real, you’re out of luck. Instead, it will give you information to help you decide for yourself what is fact and what is fiction…”

The text gives the history to how these monsters came to be well known and then includes information on why a person might act like a zombie for example. The illustrations would appeal to a younger set of students, but the text is written for an older student base. It is broken up with text features such as headings, text boxes, and monster facts. The end of each section includes a short quiz and there is a lengthy index in the back of the book.

While this topic appeals to many of my students and I think the book will be a popular check out, I think it is a book that students will read bits and pieces.