YOU, the reader, are the main character in this story, and you make the choices in this adventure. You are a servant in the 1890’s while body snatchers are robbing graves. In the beginning, a friend is murdered and her body is snatched. You decide if you trust Igor… try to stop a monster… join the resurrection men… go to the graveyard to look for a hidden diary… become Master Igor’s Apprentice, etc… However, the wrong choice is certain death. (Which could happen in a variety of ways!)  This book has colorful graphic novel pages mixed throughout. Kids will love making such critical choices!

Where in the world are pianos and pianists criminal?…in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution started by Chinese leader Mao Tsetung.  The Red Piano was inspired by the incredible true story of the international concert pianist, Zhu Xiao-Mei.  Art, literature, music, were out…hard manual labor in the fields, and the studying of Chairman Mao’s sayings and commands found in his “Little Red Book”…was in.  Zhu Xiao-Mei spent nearly ten years in a dismal “re-education” camp.  Before entering the camp, she was a gifted child pianist playing concerts on Beijing radio.  Her mother, sent to Beijing for illness, managed to smuggle a piano into her daughter’s neighboring village, where she sneaks out each night for practice.  Of course, she is discovered and publicly shamed…her beloved piano cut up for firewood.  Eventually Mao dies and the camp is emptied.  She is the last person to leave.  What a powerful human rights story told in a sparse, succinct styled prose.  Also, appropriate to the pervasive bleakness of the situation, the illustrator did an outstanding job using black and grey watercolor illustrations punctuated by only one color…red.

Occasionally, I have students interested in fashion, therefore, I had hopes that this publication would give them good examples from the 1980s.  My first disappointment was when I discovered that  the book was heavy on text and skimpy on photographs.  My second disappointment was realizing that the title was misleading.  It felt like more of a “1980’s pop culture” book. If the author had left out the extraneous, non-fashion discourse, and added a bizillion more photographs for the elementary audience, this could have been a fashion winner.  I did find the Timeline in the back matter to be interesting.  Each decade is represented with “The look…The hair…The fad…starting in the 1920s up until 2000.

Author Melissa Stewart takes her readers on a side by side comparison of these two large ocean animals using the headings:

Fish or Mammal?,  Scales or Skin?,  Tail or Flukes? , Gills or Lungs? , Pup or Calf? , and Smell or Sound?

Sharks are always on the left page with the dolphins always opposite on the right page.

The easy straight forward facts are, also, presented in a graphic organizer on page 18.

Contains: web sites, books, index, contents, and words to know

This is book 5 in the Ghostly Graphic Adventures series.

Joey and Tank take a trip to explore Star Island, one of the Isle of Shoal in New Hampshire. Perhaps they’ll find some of Blackbeard, the pirate’s treasure. While on the island they meet up with Mitty who lives there, only to discover later she may be one of the island’s many ghosts.

On page 31 there is a mini history of Star Island.

In this whimsical adventure, some fleas decide to hop off their animals and start a traveling circus.  The audience loves the show which finales with a flea being shot to the moon!  This book would make a fun read-aloud and the colorful illustrations will capture imaginations.  Writing about a flea adventure is a unique idea and the text is descriptive and exciting.

This book is a winner for a catholic school library such as ours.  In the context of the classic Noah’s Ark story, this book took the perspective of Mrs. Noah.  While her husband was busy saving two of each animal on Earth, Mrs. Noah very practically  focused on vegetation, particularly edible vegetation.  She gathered up seeds, plants and trees and loaded them on the ark.  During the flood, Noah’s family had plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables to eat.  When the ark finally landed, Mrs. Noah was able to begin replanting the earth with vegetation.  The illustrations are colorful  and detailed.

The graphic novel style and engaging illustrations should attract young readers to this classic literature by Shakespeare.  The language can be difficult to understand, especially in this abbreviated format without the complete context of the original work.  With a couple of readings as well as the illustrated “Cast of Characters” in the beginning of the book and the “Behind Julius Caesar” plot summary at the end of the book, the storyline does become evident.  The illustrations compliment the text well and are exciting and expressive.

What a fun read-aloud!  This picture book in graphic novel style put a big smile on my face from the rhyming text to the hilarious illustrations.  A school class bakes a gingerbread man and leaves it to cool in the classroom during recess.  The gingerbread man thinks he’s been left behind and goes searching for his class.  From one predicament to another, this persistent little cookie looks for his class.  Finally the cookie lands in the Principal’s office.  She helps him out, explains all and returns him to his class who has been looking for him and is very happy to see him.  Our kindergarten class has a gingerbread activity every fall during which they go hunting for a gingerbread man who is loose in the school.  They will particularly enjoy this story as will several younger classes who fondly remember that kindergarten activity.

This creative and fun picture book takes little Katie and her grandma to an art gallery with a Monet exhibit.   While grandma rests, Katie is surprised when a woman in a Monet painting invites her to hop into the painting for a little art lesson.  Borrowing some art supplies, Katie hops out of the first painting and into 4 more, encountering adventures and inspiration from Monet’s beautiful works along the way.  The name of each painting is given and there is more information about the art featured in the back of the book.  The illustrations are lovely and Impressionist in style, complimenting the story text well throughout.  At our school, elementary students create their own waterlily pond picture  in the Impressionist style.  Teachers will enjoy reading this book during that unit.  It is a welcome addition to our library collection.

Kyle is riding the bus for the first time and has been instructed by his big brother on what to do to survive the bus ride.  There were 10 rules he must absolutely not break if he is to survive the school bus ride.   As Kyle rides the bus he ends up breaking most all of the rules and is waiting for someone to pound him or laugh at him.  As he rides he finds the school bus is not so bad.

When Kyle gets home at the end of the day he realizes that there is a rule eleven:  Never. absolutely never, pay attention to your big brother’s list of Ten rules You Absolutely Must not Break if You Want to survive the School bus!

The Illustrations are beautiful.  I love the perspective, the colors and the softness of each one.

Most children don’t understand when an elderly person is grumpy and the children don’t want to be around them.  In this book the little boy doesn’t like to go to grandpa’s house because Grandpa is grumpy and scary.  There is not much to do at Grumpy Grandpa’s house and you have to be quite and careful.

One day Granpa takes the little boy with him to the lake.  You have to be very quite when you fish, so it isn’t much fun.  Then the boy stands up in the boat to run away and they both land in the water.  Grumpy Grandpa starts to laugh.  The boy is surprised.  Grandpa realizes that may be he has forgotten how it is to be little.

This is a good book about two different families from different times in history and both traveling from Missouri, to Oregon City.  One family is from 1846 and the other from NOW.

This book takes you on an interesting trip with both families.  In 1846 it would take you five months to travel from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City.  Today it would only take 5 days to travel the same trip.

This is a fun way to learn about the history of our country.

Right away, the reader is drawn into this book by the wonderful cover illustration which is dramatic and amazingly detailed.  Quickly paging through, we find beautiful and expressive black and white sketches to enhance the text on almost every page.  This fictional story is framed in the factual setting of Edgar Allan Poe’s childhood.  Orphaned at age 3, Poe went to live with Frances and John Allan who raised him as their foster son.  As Eddie grew, he discovered his talent for imaginative writing, particularly poetry focused on the macabre.  With a rich fantasy life, his constant companion is a little imp who whispers fearful imaginings into her ear constantly through day and night and a trustworthy raven who provides sensible balance to the imp’s constant rants.  One night during an especially alarming nightmare, Eddie wakes to finds he has sleepwalked outside to the neighbor’s chicken yard and is suddenly accused of bagging and hanging up his cat and the neighbor’s prize rooster.  Faced with a whipping by his foster father the following day, he must prove himself innocent.  His detective adventures take him to the local theater where he eventually solves the mystery and makes a very special friend.  The writing of this book is rich with descriptive language and pulls the reader in to turn page after page.  I really enjoyed this book and will highly recommend it to my 4-8th grade readers.

Pandora Gets Lazy is the third book in this series following Pandora Gets Jealous and Pandora Gets Vain.  Featuring Greek Gods, myths and characters from Greek ancient history, this book continues the adventures of Pandora who is attempting to recapture all the evils which has she accidentally released from the box.  On  her way to find the evil Lazy, she falls from Apollo’s flying chariot and is rescued by Dionysus.  Her friends carry on in the chariot, fearing that Pandora is dead.  All the main characters are eventually captured by slavers who force march them to the mountains where Atlas is supposed to be holding up the heavens.  Only he’s not and is forcing thousands of human men to do the job for him.  Within 4 days, each man is crippled and spent and replaced with fresh slaves.  The action in this book is steady throughout and comes to a climax in the final scenes as Pandora is faced with rescuing her friends and saving the world.  I enjoyed reading this book and think it will especially appeal to girls 5th – 8th grade.  The characters speak like modern day teens, although all the book’s setting is ancient Greece, which I found a bit distracting as a reader.  Overall, I recommend this book and find that it is already popular in our K-8 school library.

This is a keeper!  This one needs to be nominated for the Washington Children’s Picture Book Award for 2012-2013 school year.  Janet Stevens does it again, knocks one out of the ballpark.  The main characters of this story are the tools that you would find on a teacher’s desk: scissors, stapler, pushpin, etc. and of course, the infamous “red pen” used for correcting papers.  One night pen works late into the night and asks for help from the other tools, who do not wish to participate in the correcting of papers.  Then the accident.  Pen accidently falls off in to the “the pit of no return” aka the trash can.  The other tools work together, in  a clever and cooperative manner, which also includes the classroom hamster, to rescue our hardworking pen.    Great personification of common, everyday objects, found on a teacher’s desk.  Kids and adults alike with delight in this story.  Wonderful, large, colorful illustrations by Susan Stevens Crummel.  (yes, the author and illustrator are related to each other).

In Biggest vs. Smallest, Susan K. Mitchell compares animals much like the birds- an ostrich  to a hummingbird. BUT Mitchell compares a Komodo dragon to a dwarf gecko, a Goliath frog to a Brazilian gold frog, and an anaconda to a Lesser Antillean threadsnake.  While I’ve known of Komodo dragons and anacondas for 30 or more years, this book is quite up-to-date since the dwarf gecko (which can fit on a dime) was only discovered in 2001 and the Lesser Antillean threadsnake (which is as thin as pencil lead and can fit on a quarter) was discovered in 2008.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple are each given a 2-page spread of their own, plus: brown, white, and black.

Each spread has an object photographed against a white background accompanied by the color word and the name of the object ( red bike, yellow duckling). Each object fills the page nicely giving the reader a sense of texture through its up-close detail.

7  1/2″ x 6  1/4″

An observant little girl enjoys seeing the many changes occurring during the coming of spring “in my backyard.”

There are ten 2-page spreads. Each one with the following pattern:  _____________________ in my backyard.

Example: Trees have buds in my backyard. Other subjects include: frogs, ants, birds, seeds, ladybugs, flowers, squirrels, spiders, and ducks.

Illustrator, Erin O’Leary Brown’s soft watercolors show the contemplation of the little girl as she moves through different parts of her backyard. Just as spring doesn’t arrive in day, neither do the girl’s observations because she is wearing a variety of different hair styles and apparel.

Parent & Child activities related to spring are included, such as, fingerplay, sorting & classifying, fill -in-the-blanks, and a maze.

This is a great book that tells how the dirt roads have turned into the interstate and highway system that we have today.   It goes from the construction of the National Road to the railroads and the better roads for the bikes and cars that were invented.  It shows how as new inventions come along we have to accommodate them.

The pictures are wonderful and help to illustrate the material that is talked about.

This is not the Disney story of Pinocchio. This story is a very harsh one written in 1883.  Pinocchio is always in great trouble.  I would only read these bedtime stories to an older child, because they could cause nightmares.

I Like the pictures, they are beautiful.  The framing around the pictures is wonderful.

This is a cute story of ten little piglets who love to go wandering at night while Mamma sleeps.  The illustrations are beautiful.  The rhymes are wonderful.  Great bedtime story.

This is a cute story of dinosaurs playing basketball.  The pictures are great and colorful.  The text makes the story move and exciting.

In Monkey Trouble, book 127 in the Boxcar Children Mystery series, the  Alden children, Henry, 14, Jesse, 12, Violet, 10, and Benny, 6, spend two days touring a zoo to see the new baby animals.  They buy a camera to share and enter a contest for the best photo of the animals.  During the tour, a camera goes missing, a Capuchin monkey escapes from its cage, and suspicions and mysteries abound.  By recalling memories and making astute observations, the Aldens find answers to each problem encountered.  Monkey Trouble is typical of the many stories written and inspired by Gertrude Chandler Warner.  These chapter books are written at a third or fourth grade reading level and relate mystery-solving adventures of the self-sufficient Alden children.  Most chapters contain a black and white pencil illustration by Robert Papp.

Rosa and the Water Pony is sure to be a hit with fans of mermaid stories.  Rosa and her friends Melody, Sula, and Jasmine decide to enter a contest with a pearl necklace as the grand prize.  Rosa’s cousin, Coral, arrives just as they start to put their plan into action.  With Coral’s help, they use magic to transform a seahorse into a water pony.  Mean sisters, Myrtle and Muriel, come to watch.  As they practice riding with flips and twists, Coral out-rides them all.  Rosa’s feelings are hurt and she quickly swims away.  The next day, Rosa is still gone and Sparkle, the water pony is missing.  The mermaids find a note, supposedly from Rosa, suggesting that Sparkle is in Five Fathom Forest, a place full of sea monsters.  The search includes some surprising twists.  The friends reunite, perform with joy, and win the competition.  With large font and Tom Knight’s pen and ink line drawings on every page, beginning readers will enjoy this transition from picture to chapter books.  This is book one in the Mermaid Mysteries series.  Subsequent books focus on each of the other mermaid friends.