This series is a comical and rhyming guide for teachers who are working with their students on grasping various grammatical concepts and parts of speech.  The illustrations are funny and colorful.  We have several from this series in our school library and teachers do use them with their classes to reinforce these concepts.

This is a good overview non-fiction book geared for late elementary through middle school aged students who are interested in the events around Hurricane Katrina.  Full of engaging, but student-friendly pictures of the disaster, the layout makes the information very readable.  The price makes this series very affordable for the quality of the book.

This was a fun story of a 5th grade girl Abbie, who happens to be a witch.  She ends up in one comical pickle after another as she navigates life and works to solve a mystery involving her enchanted cat.  As the mystery unravels and the plot thickens, Abbie’s magical skills and courage are tested.  The characters are well developed, the parents (also witches) demonstrate impeccable parenting throughout, and Thomas Edison’s role in science and technology is introduced adding an educational component.

This easy-to-read collection of Bible stories includes the David and Bathsheba story and others which may call for some explaining if it’s read to very small children.  However,  for older children and adults the familiar stories are an interesting and entertaining collection of folk tales, poetry, short stories, and history.  The author introduces each chapter with a summary of his research and opinions on the story that is to follow.

The flood is there, though in a couple of paragraphs rather than the many verses that King James gives it.  The important genealogy of Jesus is shortened to a paragraph, which is enough to explain that Joseph was a descendant of David.

Purists may be reciting the beautiful King James wording in their minds, and students will note that chapter and verse divisions are not there, though the index at the end does identify in which book the stories appear in the King James version.  Nevertheless,  this story format works very well for reading aloud.  The author’s thoughts, such as that Joseph cries himself to sleep in frustration when he finds out that Mary is pregnant before their wedding, are an interesting addition.

This is a great book with jokes about classrooms, sports, food, teachers, and other school subjects.  Kids love jokes and they will love this book with jokes they can understand and tell to their friends.  Very colorful and fun jokes.

9 year-old Suzanne (possibly Great Britain’s Judy Moody counterpart) is supposed to be writing “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” for homework, but instead, rambles on and on about how she wanted a pet hamster, her mother said ‘no’, then let her have one after her Nana dies. After the two ‘girl’  hamsters arrive, Suzanne’s family finds out one of the hamsters is in fact pregnant, not just really really getting fat from overeating. Mother and the pet shop owner discuss the possibility of  hamster Immaculate Conception, which Suzanne doesn’t understand. After the babies are born, they are found died, one adult hamster is missing and the other one is missing a paw. Suzanne and her best friend get the advice of a retired police investigator to help them solve the mystery of how the babies died. And finally it comes full circle back to Suzanne’s homework assignment.

I did enjoy the comical black & white sketches of the hamsters, little taped notes sprinkled on several pages , the little hamster footprints next to each chapter title, and the gutter of each page was illustrated to look like a spiral notebook.

Author Susan Meddaugh’s Martha, the talking dog, retells the story of how Skitzy got into trouble on the thin lake ice while chasing a hockey puck when he was a puppy.

You might not think of summer camp as a place to learn about science but…

Ah, summer camp, a time to have fun in the great outdoors and hear spooky stories at the night campfire.

Loraine, a camp counselor, helps some of the campers learn about the state of matter, on the sly, through clues leading to the discovery of the camp’s mysterious fog zombie. Loraine, also,  reveals how to keep a match dry underwater by trapping it in an air bubble in a container, thus proving air takes up space. How temperature (heating & cooling) effects matter, also, comes into play in solving the zombie mystery.

The reader will find 5 science info “bubbles” interspersed at the appropriate times throughout this informationally entertaining graphic novel.

Includes: two do-at-home with adult supervision experiments.

Green Bible stories are a new take on interpreting the Bible to fit into modern-day life.  Stories such as Noah and the ark, Moses, and Abraham, are all rewritten to apply to today’s conditions.  Lehman-Wilzig has rewritten stories to show that the Bible taught us to recycle, to plan for emergencies, and how to take care of nature so that it takes care of us.  It’s an interesting concept.  Children from families with strong beliefs will find it useful.

There are a total of 20 different journeys in this book, beginning with the start of creation, as told in the Bible.  Each journey takes the reader through time, through the lands near the Mediterranean Sea, where the cradle of religion began.  Main stories and main characters from the Bible are featured.  Inset maps are included to show where the story takes place, as well as a geography tip as to what to expect.  Rowland did a nice job of illustrating how many people think it would have looked like.  The difficult part in reading this book is that each journey is somewhat disconnected.  Yes, they all took place long ago and in the same general vicinity, but Rock leaves out how each story is connected to the one previous to it and the following one.  The timeline is somewhat blurry, so are the differences between fact and fiction.  The success of this book will depend much on the beliefs of the students’ families.