The sequel to Our Only May Amelia, this tells of the continuing adventures of a young girl growing up in Southwest Washington around the beginning of the 20th century.  Her family is a poor farming family, amid a community of poor farming/logging families.  Most of the folks in the community are immigrants from Finland, and like our immigrant communities today, they depend on the children to help translate, as much of the older generation speaks limited English.  When a slick city guy comes to offer a deal that’s too good to be true, Amelia is the one who speaks for her father, getting him to sign papers that they think will bring them all riches, but instead robs them of all their savings.  What really makes these books such a treat are the relationships between Amelia and her brothers and the network of connections in this close-knit community.  The only thing I wasn’t crazy about is the new cover — since the story is set before the days of color photography, the glossy cover seems a little disconnected.

This is the second book in this series I’ve read (though it’s actually the third book in a trilogy — I never read the one in the middle), and I’ve really enjoyed both.  Set during the Revolutionary War, it tells the adventures of a girl dressed and living as a boy aboard a privateering ship.  In the first book she was disguised to everyone; somewhere in book two, she must have revealed herself to the couple trusted friends who know her secret in this one.  The book does a good job of describing what life aboard ship would have been like in those days, outlining the differences and relationships between the navy ships, privateers, and pirates, and it’s got good plot and character development to draw the reader into Hannah’s adventures.  The only real problem is that the title gives away the ending, as it is not until the very end of the book that Hannah is made Captain of the ship.

A small spiral bound book with alternating pages of heavy board and transparency film, it provides basic information for young readers about different types of homes, from prehistoric caves to modern city sky-scrapers.  Each two-page spread (with one tranparency in the middle) is dedicated to a different type of home from a different part of the world, with 4-6 sentences describing its unique features and why they are helpful to the people who live there.  While I know students will be intrigued by the transparent pages, and the information is sound, if scant, I worry about how this type of binding will hold up under library use.  I don’t expect it to last long.

The illustrations are fabulous: they’re charming and sweet and inviting.  But then you start reading.  There are actually several short stories, but they’re all rather dull and stilted in the telling: this said Maudie, that said Bear.  Maybe they’re meant to appeal to the very young pre-school child, but I think they need to hear more fluent examples of language.  But the pictures really are delightful.

Given that it’s meant to be about humor, it’s rather dry in the telling.  It’s got some good information.  I learned some stuff.  It’s got some jokes and comics sprinkled throughout, but there’s no color to make it visually appealing.  Somehow it seems that it ought to be funnier (or at least more interesting) in the telling.

A picture book for kids to share with their grandmas, the illustrations are cheerful and fun, and depict a whole variety of grandmas.  The rhyming text celebrates the variety of grandmas found in our world:  different ways they look, different things they like to do, different names they’re called by.  It reminds kids that if they haven’t got a grandma of their own nearby,  it’s possible to adopt one.  It reminds us all to cherish our grandmas.  It’s a delight.

It’s got a beautiful cover, and the author has received all sorts of awards for other books, but I had a hard time really getting into this one, or imagining who would.  It’s a work of historical fiction set in 1912 in the Cuban countryside, told in free-verse poetry.  The main character is a girl who has been diagnosed with what they refer to at that time as “word blindness,” what we would call dyslexia, and these are supposedly her collection of poems she’s written in a blank book her mother gave her.  Besides dealing with her learning disability in a time when society was less accepting of such, she’s also dealing with the turmoil of living in a time of political unrest, and there are vague allusions to a creepy guy who works for her parents who may be trying to get too friendly with the daughters of the house.  The problem with the poetic form to tell the story is that it leaves a lot unsaid, and the reader is left piecing things together.  And to be honest, the girl comes across rather whiney.  I so much wanted to like it more than I did.  I think there is a gap in children’s literature for both hispanic kids and kids with learning disabilities finding themselves represented.  But I don’t think there’s enough here for any of my students to really connect with.

This is a very readable book tackling some seriously complex science in an approach that is rather conversational.  Just when one explanation brings up some question the reader wonders about, that’s the next thing they explain.  And yet it doesn’t give the mistaken impression that scientists have all the answers, either; it acknowledges the way our scientific understanding continues to grow and evolve.

It’s a very sentimental, idealistic version of history, focusing on the family relationships between the famous Kennedy brothers.  Still, who says there’s anything wrong with sentiment and idealism?  The soft water-color illustrations are stunning and really draw the reader in to the story.

Really flashy graphics and color photos are visually appealing, but REALLY low on substance: it’s got a couple of sentences in large font on each two-page spread — mostly pictures. Great binding, though!  Still, not worth the cost of the binding.