Sibling rivalry is a universal theme.  Rubina is invited to a birthday party and her younger sister, Sana, wants to go, too.  Being new to America, her mother does not understand the custom and insists Rubina takes her.  Sana is a brat and disrupts the party.  both girls were given a treat bag to take  home and Rubina saves her big, red lollipop for later.  Sana eats everything in her bag – as well as most of Rubina’s lollipop.  Mother takes Sana’s side and insists Rubina be nice to her sister.  One day, Sana brings home an invitation to a birthday party and the youngest sister, Maryam, wants to go.   Although tempted not to, Rubina convinces her mother to let Sana go alone.  When Sana returns, she offers Rubina a big, green lollipop as thanks.  Artist Sophie Blackall introduces a multicultural air by illustrating mother in traditional Arab clothing and designs.  Rukhsana Khan balances Rubina’s emotions and empathy as the family adjusts to combining culture and sisterly relationships.  This is an engaging story and could initiate many discussions on traditions, sibling rivalry, or immigrants, to name a few.

As in many of the popular Black Lagoon books, Hubie’s imagination get away from him.  A new gym teacher, Mr. Green, is coming from the junior high school and rumors start flying.  Coach is big, hairy, and scary.  It is not until the first day, that Hubie an his pals discover Mr. Green is a regular guy and gym class is going to be great.  Jared Lee’s ink and watercolor illustrations continue to have fun with all of Hubie’s worries.  This is a re-issue of the story first published in 1994.

Books in this series have detailed maps on the end-pages – a large country map in the front and the country’s location in Europe in the back.  The land that is known as Romania has had a wide and varied history.  Several periods of various ruling countries or people are covered in brief paragraphs.  The text, in this book of the series, is dry and captions for some photographs need further explanation.  Conversation bubbles appear to be a flimsy attempt at humor and seem out of place.   The series includes chapters on history, cities and towns, transportation, people and culture, education, cuisine, economy, tourism and nature.  This is an additional resource for writing country reports.  The quality of each book in the series is inconsistent, however, each provides sufficient information for grade school reports.

Books in this series have detailed maps on the end-pages – large country map in the front and the country’s location in Europe, in the back.  The book on Bulgaria begins with an abbreviated history, regions, and physical features.  Several cities are highlighted.  Because Bulgaria is a transit city (people from other countries travel through it), there are a variety of modes of transportation.  The chapter on people and culture include holidays and traditions.  The section on education begins with a statement saying public education has decreased in quality since 1989.  Some photos have conversation bubbles that appear to make light of the situation , which seems inappropriate.  Cuisine is influenced by many surrounding countries.  Traditional and common foods are described along with a salad recipe.  Economic concerns and a section on tourism concludes the book.  Text contains enough information for reports but is not exceptionally well written.  Glossary and index are included.  Websites provide good additional information.

The front end pages contain a large map  of Poland.  The back end pages contain a map of Poland and surrounding countries in Europe.  The book begins with a brief history and geographical features.  Several cities are highlighted.  The people and culture chapter includes names of famous Poles.  The education system is described.  Christmas and Easter are two important holidays.  Favorite foods and traditional dishes are mentioned.  One recipe for beet soup is included.  Although most people travel by car, other methods are by railways, by water, and by air.  The book concludes with short chapters on nature and tourism destinations.  Glossary, index, and several reliable websites are included.  There are many colorful photographs that complement the text.  Contains good information for writing country reports.  There is no photo or illustration about the country flag, but accurate information can be found on the recommended websites.

A sweet, simple story, useful for addressing bullying problems.  Carly and Sandy are two sisters who enjoy playing together until a new neighbor moves into the neighborhood.  Lily Jean seems to enjoy being on a power trip, and only wants to play with Sandy.  She will only allow Carly to play if she takes on the demeaning roles Lily assigns.  Sandy sort of half-hearedly tries to stick up for Carly a few times, but gets over-ruled.  In the end, when Lily Jean tries to exclude Carly altogether and tells Sandy to come over to her house to play, Sandy finally says no, and insists she’s going to stay and play with Sandy.  Then Lily Jean wants to play badly enough she declares she’ll be anything they want, so Carly and Sandy demand she be nice, and she agrees.  Though perhaps unrealistically simplistic in finding resolution to a big problem that is usually not so easily solved, it is a good conversation starter, and illustrates well how easily bullying can get started.

This was not as painful to read as I expected it to be.  I picked it up because I knew I have students who are interested in the series, but I thought it would be a real chore for me to read.  Though I certainly wouldn’t call it great literature (a bit cheesy, two-dimensional characters, predictable plot), it was really a reasonable, nice little undemanding story for those who aren’t really strong readers. While it’s able to build off the popularity of the Disney movies on which it is based, I would certainly recommend having it in your collection for those fans.  However, though the binding on Spotlight’s edition is certainly nice and sturdy, I doubt the popularity of the series is likely to last as long as this binding, so I probably wouldn’t bother investing in the reinforced library bound unless you really expect a lot of hard wear and tear — probably the paperbacks would suffice long enough.

Beautiful illustrations of painted paper collage support this story as Lucky Mouse recounts for his friend Lucy all the ways his lucky feather has proven itself lucky since he found it.  Lucy is skeptical — to her, each incident sounds like coincidence or bad luck, etc.  But each time Lucky is able to correct her and explain just why it was really good luck.  In the end, when the lucky feather saves them both, Lucky presents it as a gift to Lucy.  A delightful tale about looking on the bright side.

Often I don’t like when books mix English and Spanish, but this book does so in a very deliberate way, which helps to teach a few Spanish words in a mostly English text.  Building off a repeating pattern, similar to “This Is the House that Jack Built,” each new phrase is first introduced in English, and then subsequently repeated with the nouns in Spanish.  Picture clues in the illustration support comprehension of the new vocabulary.  By the end of the story all the ingredients have been added to the pot to form rice pudding, which the farm maiden shares with all those who helped contribute.  At the back of the book is a recipe for rice pudding and a glossary of the Spanish vocabulary used in the story. It’s bright & cheerful & fun, and could be useful for language learners, both English and Spanish.

A few Spanish words are sprinkled throughout mostly English text as a young girl describes some of the things found in her barrio, or neighborhood, the last of which are paletas in every color of the sarape.  The bright, bold illustrations to support the text, so that readers unfamiliar with the Spanish words would be able to use picture clues and context to deduce their meaning (an just in case, there’s a glossary in the back).  The bulk of the book consists of the young girl listing all that one can do with a paleta (similar to a popsicle), including painting your tongue and cooling down and learning to make tough decisions.