“What is geography for? To get to know what the surface of the Earth looks like.” So begins this First Discovery book for second through fourth graders. Illustrators Ute Fuhr and Raoul Sautai have created mountain, coastline, valley, plain, delta, river valley, the Grand Canyon, and volcanic island landscapes with distinct geographic features labeled. The text across the top of the page is over simplified without supporting details. The readers will enjoy the four transparent pages flipping them back and forth to see the before and after erosion scenes.

This book is made of heavy board pages with sturdy metal comb binding.

In book 3 of the Infinity Ring series, Sera, Riq, and Dak travel to the year 1850 in the state of Maryland.  Their mission is to fix a break in the time continuum that has something to do with the Underground Railroad and Harriett Tubman.  With Riq being of African descent, he is immediately captured and fixed to be sold at a slave auction with a black woman and her two children.  While waiting for the auction, Riq discovers that the woman is an ancestor of his and he must help her to fulfill her destiny if he is to even exist in the future.  The three time travelers work to ensure the right people get to Canada to freedom and that the Underground Railroad is successful.  McMann does a great job of keeping the action moving as well as characterization.  This is a great way for young readers to get to know more about American history.  Each book takes the three friends to different eras throughout history.

Pluto Visits Earth! is classified as an Everybody Reads/Picture book, however it is chock full of science factoids.  The story goes that Pluto has heard that he’s been downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet.  He goes to the other planets to find out why and at each one the reader gets a nugget of knowledge.  Eventually Pluto goes to Earth and finds out eventually that he doesn’t meet all the requirements to be a planet, which is to be able to “use it’s gravity to clear it’s orbit of any asteriods.”  Students will recognize the familiar artwork of Jared Lee because of the Black Lagoon series.  What a gentle, interesting way to learn about the solar system.

Letting Go is the story about three hens who believe that a fox is up in an apple tree throwing the apples at them.  They get hysterical because they are afraid the fox will come after them next.  They run to get the rooster, but when he is almost hit by an apple, he runs away.  The hens muster up the courage to get a ladder and go up the tree to see about the fox.  When one hen finally reaches the top, she realizes that the apples just ‘let go’ and fall.  She realizes the view from the top of the tree is beautiful and the other hens come up to see for themselves.  The moral to the story is that sometimes you just have to ‘let go’, let go of fear and anything else that paralyzes you.  The story is simple yet eloquent.  The illustrations and dialogue are reminescent of Mo Willems.  This is the perfect pairing with Chicken Little.

Mom’s are wonderful!  They kiss our boo-boos, they play with us, read to us, and generally make all the icky things in the world better.  For Little Princess, her mom made everything right.  Then one day, Little Princess was invited to a sleepover, and although she was scared at first, it was alright.  But it was mom who suffered because it was the first time her baby had been away from home at night without her.  This is a perfect story for the younger kiddos, especially for Mother’s Day.  Everyone (hopefully) can identify with that one special person who makes our life so enjoyable.  Clear illustrations that show perfectly the neediness of Little Princess and the anxiety she causes others.

Randy needed glasses to see better, but he does not want to wear them.  He finds ways to lose the or get them broken, but each time his mother has another pair for him to put on.  She bought four extra pairs!  When he thought he has done away with all four of them his doctor came over and brought him five more specs just in case.

Randy wasn’t happy until his father came in with new glasses and told him,”Now I will look a bit more like you.”

Then Randy was happy to be able to see.

I didn’t like the way Randy was able to lose or break is glasses without consequences.  That can be very expensive for a parent.

I loved the pictures.

This is a super story.  It shows the positive side of being different, and that our uniqueness can be a good thing to share with others.  It is positive and full of love and acceptance, and shows how those qualities can also have a positive effect on others.

It is a great lesson for kids.  The pictures were colorful and interesting.  I like this book!

This is a cute story about using your imagination.  Many children use boxes to play with and make many this from a box.  In this story a boy named Kenny has a box that becomes many different things.  Even better than a new bike.

A great story about using your imagination.

Emily Rodda is a master at characterization and the making of a hero.  Her heroes are not beautiful, strong people, but someone who is ordinary, like you and me.  In reading her first book of her newest trilogy, The Golden Door, you connect with Rye, her new hero.  Rye lives in Weld, a walled city on a island, that has no contact with other cities on the island.  During the growing season, Weld comes under attack at night by ‘skimmers,’ creatures hunting for live food, whether it be human or animal.  These creatures fly and will attack wherever they sense smell, hear the scratch of a creature, or see light.  Come nightfall, the citizens of Weld imprison themselves in their homes in order to fend off the skimmers.  Rye lives with his widowed mother and two older brothers.  The citizens of Weld do not believe that the warden of Weld is doing much to protect it’s citizens.  First his older brother, Dirk, leaves home to find out who sent and where the creatures come from.  After more than a year’s absence, the second brother, Sholto, leaves.  Again, he doesn’t return. With his mother safe within the city’s walls, Rye finally leaves.  As he leaves Weld, he must choose which door to travel through and believing that Dirk must have chosen the Golden Door, so does he.  He travels with another youngster from Weld, a girl named Sonia, and they become friends, so to speak.  They eventually arrive at the Fell Zone whereby Rye is given a pouch containing nine magical objects to aid him in his quest.  He eventually arrives at Olt and finds that come Midsummer’s Eve a  ritual will take place in which seven human sacrifices will be given to the dragons of the sea in order for the ruler of Olt to continue to live.  Dirk, Rye’s brother, as well as Sonia, his friend, are two of the sacrifices.  It is up to Rye to save them.  Rodda does an excellent job of showing the reader how reluctant Rye is to do the impossible, but that he musters up the courage to do so, and is able to use cunning and intelligence to overcome the odds.  This book is exciting to read and makes the reader feel as though anyone can be a hero.

This is the story of a cat who couldn’t have kittens and a chick whose mommy couldn’t take care of her.  They took care of each other.  People would always comment of how different they were and wondered what is was like to be so different.  The lesson to be learned is that it’s okay to be different, it makes you special.   The colored pencil illustrations show a contented cat and happy chick and their love for one another.  What else do they need?