Years ago, a young girl named Dodie played with her little sister and sled dog pups. In short chapters sprinkled throughout the book, her story is told.

Present day, twelve year old Tee, her father and younger brother, Jack are on an extended stay in Nome, Alaska. While Tee’s father is busy with research, she and a new friend, Quin, take walks enjoying the snowy scenery. They are repeatedly disturbed by an aggressive shadow of a ghost dog. At one point, a sudden blizzard traps the girls in a shack. The mysterious ghost dog leads the way to a long time resident, Dodie. Together the girls and Dodie put pieces of the mysterious puzzle together discovering the truth about the ghost dog and the death of Dodie’s little sister. Elizabeth Cody Kimmel creates an adventure with an intriguing mystery that demands the reader to get answers.

Michael Carroll’s success with his Quantum Prophecy series continues to spill over with this second book of a trilogy that is a prequel to the 1st series.  The evil Krodin was gone, or so the superhumans Roz, Abby, Lance and Thunder thought 3 weeks earlier when walked away into their separate lives again.  But overnight everything changes.  The U.S. is now run by Chancellor Krodin.  Martial law is in place and each of the main characters will be chase all over the U.S. by Krodin’s forces once they begin using their superhuman powers.  This section of the story is a bit challenging to read as a stand alone.  Though Carroll does give background via character’s conversations and has flashbacks to the previous book, each chapter also houses at least two shifts of scene, sometimes three.  For a few pages Abby will shooting her arrows to crash a hovercraft and then Lance will be in jail for alledgedly lying to a police officer. Carrol is a master of creating suspenseful cliffhangers — great to keep a reader going, but slightly frustrating that the next chunk jump around so much, like from Max’s setting in the citadel to Roz’s scene with Victoria.  It’s difficult to have to wait until it’s Max’s scene again.  Still, any cartoon superhero fans will probably love this prose rendition of a superhero tale.  With not a single love interest or use of foul language, it can easily span upper elementary to high school audiences as an additional purchase if you already have the Quantum Prophecy series.

Jack is easy to forget.  He doesn’t make friends easily, and his own parents seem to ignore him on a regular basis.  Then, one day, he goes to spend the summer with relatives in a small town in the Midwest.  In this town, the very walls of the house where he’s staying seem to respond to his presence.

What follows is a wide-ranging tale which combines elements from The Schwa was Here (Shusterman) with a contemporary interpretation of ancient Gaia myths (though Gaia is never named).  The story starts strong, with suspense and foreboding dripping from short chapters describing the experiences of several different characters.  Barnhill attempts to combine classic elements (a small town setting, an ancient destiny, a small group of heroic kids) with more contemporary touches (a skateboard, occasional turns of phrase).  Unfortunately, it doesn’t entirely work.  The reader gets the feeling that a more experienced writer might have told the story in a more effective way.  The (very appealing) cover of this title foretells the climactic revelation in such a way that when it comes, it is not a surprise.  There are sophisticated themes here, but also plot holes — and overall, things don’t quite gel.

National Parks have not been around forever.  There were many steps required to create a protected lands system in the United States.  Theodore Roosevelt played a pivotal role during one of those important points in history.  This book tells the story of one camping trip which influenced Roosevelt’s passionate advocacy.  In the middle of a busy trip across the states, President Roosevelt spent several days with the naturalist John Muir, camping in the land which would become Yosemite National Park.  This is an approachable piece of a much larger story, told in simple, concrete terms.  The men are referred to using their childhood nicknames, and the story is told chronologically, with short paragraphs on nearly every page.  The text is complimented by full color illustrations, which are surrounded by white space until the men enter the wild land, and which then engulf the pages.  Mordicai Gerstein’s depictions of redwood forests and Yosemite Valley are particularly stunning.  This is a lovely story spotlighting a little-known piece of history in a way that will be approachable and engaging to young and old alike.

The format is attractive in this series of books.  Good use of color and graphics, without having the color be a distraction instead of an enhancement.  The captions, and pictures are distributed in good coverage.    As with most new non-fiction books, this has a great resource list in the back to further your learning.  The only change I would make would be to tone the font size down a little.  Making the font BIGGER doesn’t make it EASIER to read.  I think the size should honestly reflect the level of the reading, and in nonfiction books of substance, it will be higher.  Recommended.

This is a fabulous science book with experiments related to weather and geological activity on our planet.  The experiments come with a short story introduction based on a real event, and then supply an experiment with a supply list, step by step instructions, and some simple pictures drawn by the illustrator.  Just the right amount of information is given to spark interest, get a student going on an activity and create results.  Recommended.

This is a fabulous book about a strong female character who writes political news for a newspaper, during a time when women weren’t allowed to participate in politics.  Of course Mercy had to use a pen name, but her work stirred a lot of emotion, debate and rhetoric for the masses to contemplate.  She was 75 years old the first time she penned her name to her work!  She did much to record the history of our revolution in the United States.  Recommended!

Starcross was a delightful read!  Reeve has the rare gift of being able to weave together big vocabulary and complex themes in a manner easily accessible to young audiences.  At it’s core, Starcross, is the story of what would happen if Victorian era Britain was able to colonize the solar system.  What I was most impressed with was Reeve’s ability to weave together the Victorian cultural motifs and sci-fi elements.  My favorite example of this is the novel’s villains, the Moobs, mind-controlling, time-traveling alien invaders disguised as top hats.  Even the sci-fi elements reflect the historic beliefs of Victorian Britain: space ships are literal ships, and the vacuum of space contains breathable air.  The book also plays as elaborate parody of colonial politics: a major plot involves a French spy working with the United states to upset British intergalactic supremacy.  Starcross acts as a serious reflection of the values and beliefs of Victorian England, playing them for absurdity merely by altering the setting.

The whimsical pros are captivating, it’s a great story, and it contains a treasure trove of knowledge about Victorian England made more accessible for the fictional elements.  This is the type of book needed to instill in young readers a lifelong love of the written word.  My only critique is the characters are fairly generic, never taking on much of a life beyond their setting.  It’s also worth noting this is a sequel to Reeve’s previous book, Larklight.

Jordan Beaudry, Washington Reading Corps

Even for an early reader, this book is way too simplified and general.  It’s only got one sentence per page, and those sentences are so vague as to provide very little information, even bordering on misinformation by way of omission.  It answers the question, “What are fruits?” with the statement, “Fruits are parts of plants.”  Which parts? Not all parts of plants are fruits.  It tells us, “Many fruits are round.” Many are other shapes, too.  It tells us, “Fruits are full of nutrients.” So are all the other healthy foods that belong to the other food groups.  There are much better food group books available for the money.

I like the size and the sturdy binding and the color photos, and I like that most pages include 2-4 sentences rather than some early readers that only have 1-2 sentences per page, but I think it’s trying to be more than it can be.  Given the limitations of the early-reader format, it perhaps needed a smaller focus.  Each page is dedicated to safety tips for different places, but in just a few sentences, you are obviously limited to how much content you can include. For example, the “At Home” section only addresses poison safety; the “At School” page only considers slipping or getting lost on a field trip.  Obviously there are many, many ways children can be hurt both at home or at school, so a few sentences really don’t cover it.  I do like that it started with the idea safety starts with thinking before you act — that helps to cover what cannot be listed.

Recommended with reservations.  It fits a narrow curriculum niche, strictly for young readers for health lessons — not likely to be chosen as recreational reading.  But if you need something to fit this niche, it’s a good selection:  one to two sentence on each page are accompanied by full-page color illustrations; it explains what kinds of foods are part of the dairy group, what makes a serving size, how much is recommended each day, and offers meal/snack suggestions.  It’s got a sturdy binding and the full range of non-fiction text features.

I recommend this book with reservations.  It is strictly an early reader book, and it is not likely to be chosen for recreational reading, which means it serves a small niche in a school library collection.  I have a hard time recommending such books, due to the limited information one gets for one’s buck, but if you need something to fit this particular niche in your curriculum, this is a good choice.  It lists examples of foods included in the protein group, including portion sizes and daily recommendations. It describes some of the benefits offered by the protein group, and offers meal/snack suggestions.  One or two simple sentences on each page accompany full-page color photos.  The full gambit of non-fiction text features are included at a rudimentary level. And it’s got a good, sturdy binding

Beginning with a Cherokee Indian legend about copperheads, facts are presented about this fascinating reptile.  Their habitat, coloring, types of copperheads, and how they hunt fill this 32 page book.  Highlighted terms are defined on the page as well as again in the glossary.  Fact boxes provide extra details.  Photographs are large, colorful, and show features of each type of snake.  Glossary, index, and books for further reading are in the back.  A facthound internet site and a publisher site provide further information and activities.

Ramona loves to play beach volleyball and dreams of playing in the Olympics.  When a developer plans to build on their court, Ramona must learn how to be a team player instead of just a skilled one.  Each chapter has black and white illustrations.  In the back are: a glossary of volleyball terms, brief information about the author and illustrator, discussion questions, writing prompts, two pages of beach volleyball facts, other Jake Maddox stories, and two internet sites for further information and activities.

I love the illustrations:  they evoke the time period well and draw the reader in.  Unfortunately, the writing doesn’t live up to the illustrations.  The story is not told very well, and this reader was left wondering why I’m supposed to care about this particular bit of obscure American history. Questions are left unanswered.  After the big build up of acquiring the locomotive and explaining its purpose, it says it went three miles on its first run and had to turn around because there was a bridge it couldn’t fit under, but it never says whether they resolved that problem or not, whether it ever actually served its intended purpose or not.

In rhyming verse, this tells the story of a boy who likes to explore. When his mother protests his tendency to bring bugs home, he brings a mouse home instead.  As mom continues to protest, he continues to escalate, bringing home a pig a moose, an elephant, and a whale.  In the end mom decides bugs aren’t so bad after all.  The illustrations are cute, the story is one that will make kids giggle (even if it never does explain where he acquires his pig and elephant, etc.); it would likely have earned an R* if the rhythm of the poem read a little more smoothly.

A young rabbit who’s nervous about his upcoming baseball tryouts listens to his dad’s stories about what he and his friends did for luck when he was a boy.  On the way to tryouts, young Luis stops at the market and enjoys a free sample on offer, and does really well.  The stops at the market become part of his routine at the beginning of a very successful season, but one day when there are no samples left, he seems to lose his mojo, and becomes superstitious that his luck is dependent upon his pre-game snacks.  His dad assures him that success comes from listening to your coach and working hard, but young Luis is not convinced until the very end, when he concentrates and hits the ball even though he didn’t stop at the market.  It may come across a wee bit preachy, but it gets its message across.

I very nearly gave this a “recommended.”  The riddles are generally quite clever (all school themed, as the title indicates), and these types of play on words are good for developing children’s vocabulary.  The reason I hesitate is based on bang for one’s library buck — given the cost of reinforced library binding, I’d like to see more than 20 jokes in the entire book — but if you can afford it, it is a fun book.  I do however disagree with the publisher’s target audience.  They list it with a reading level of K-1 and an interest level of PreK-2.  Though preschoolers do tend to show an interest in the concept of riddles, they rarely “get” them, and it would take a very advanced kindergartener to read this.  I would suggest it for grades 2-5.

It’s charming.  The text is simple — one sentence per page, arranged in rhyming pairs, all starting with “I see…”  It lists all the things one might see around them to indicate the season is fall (both in nature and in society), a good tool for young classes studying the seasons.  The color palette reflects the season, and the illustrations both support the text and charm the reader.

I’m afraid I didn’t like it as much as I hoped to, given that it was by Patricia Reilly Giff.  It’s one of those early reader books that tries to build a bridge between picture books and chapter books, about a girl and her friend who notice something new happening next door, and jump to the conclusion that a witch is building a Hansel & Gretel house.  When her dog escapes the yard, Jim & Jilli set out to rescue him from the clutches of the evil witch, but in end, they come to find out it is a school being built by a very nice teacher.  It was an adequate story, but there’s nothing about it that makes it stand out as a must-have.

Every library needs to have some books in the new-baby-joining-the-family line, for parents to help prepare big brothers and sisters.  If you’re looking for something to fill this niche, this one is adequate, though the very simple, short sentences limit the target audience to the very young.

I’ve started noticing most Bible stories have a similar look to the illustrations, and this one shares that same typical artistic style.  I found the text of the story a little stilted, lacking story-telling fluency.  It’s fine, but I think there are better options available in this line if you look harder.

If there were more jokes for your money, it would probably have gotten a “recommended” rating, but hard-back books aren’t cheap, and there’s only 20 jokes in the whole books (though I believe technically they’re actually riddles).  Most of them are really quite clever, but there are a few duds that fall flat, so you’re pretty much looking at $1 per joke.  Also, I disagree with the publishers as to the reading level & interest level.  They declare it to be a K-1 reading level, and a PreK-2 interest level; though jokes and riddles appeal to all ages, they must know some very advanced kindergartners — I feel it’s more like a 2nd grade reading level, and likely to appeal to students up to grade 5.

It’s a rather flat little story that feels like something you read as an assignment, rather than because you’ve been drawn in to care about the characters.  In the last week of the swim season, shortly before the final meet, a foreign exchange students joins the team.  As soon as the announcement is made, one of the other swimmers raises the question, “Who joins a team at the end of the season?”  And the reader never does find out the answer to that question.  When the newcomer befriends one of the team’s champs, he explains how much he wants to win a medal, as he never has before, and seeks help in training. At the last minute, the two boys find themselves competing in the same event.  It’s rather predictable and simple, and I’d probably rate it as “not recommended,” except that I do have one student who has repeatedly checked out others in this series, so I’m willing to consider it may hold some appeal for students that I just don’t see.