Making a Circuit is one of four books in the “It’s Electric” series.  It introduces the concept of electricity and clearly explains terms and procedures in making a circuit.  The font is large, sentences are brief, color photographs are relevant and labeled, most with captions, and words to know are in bold font.  The layout is clean, simple, and pleasing.  All learners, including English language learners, can benefit from this book and/or series.  It is a terrific resource for understanding the basic scientific concept of circuitry and components.  Other titles in the series are Conductors and Insulators, Using Batteries, and Using Electricity.  All are written at a similar level and are recommended for elementary libraries.  Books to read, helpful websites, a glossary, and index are included.

This quiet, simple story illustrates some common zen concepts: living in the moment, being kind and pleasant without regard to reward, and letting go of past unpleasantness to enjoy the here-and-now.  A girl is angry and upset about losing an earring.  One of two boys gets dirty while searching but finds the jewelry.  The girl is rude when he returns it and stomps off.  The boy’s friend cannot understand why her behavior does not upset him.  His reply is that the event happened a while ago, the girl is gone, the day is beautiful, and they should be enjoying the moment, not stewing about the past.  Worrying and thinking about the event will not change it so letting go prevents the girl’s negative behavior from affecting his.  This story presents one more tool for children to try when dealing with problems.  Large, uncomplicated illustrations are a good match with this calm approach to conflict.

Ol’ Mama Squirrel is a valiant protector of her babies.  She chases off cats, dogs, kites, airplanes, and repairmen with her loud and scolding, “Chook chook chook!”  One day a grizzly bear was unaffected by her zeal or barrage of nuts.  Instead of being frightened, Ol’ Mama Squirrel voiced an alarm all over the park.  Just as grizzly approached Grandpappy’s nest, Mama returned with her angry “Chook chook chook!” – along with a hundred other furious mamas, scolding and throwing nuts!  Grizzly ran away, never to return and Ol’ Mama Squirrel’s babies were safe.  The townspeople were so grateful to be rid of the grizzly they erected a plaque next to her tree – which you should go see… if  you can get near it!  David Stein’s humorous ink and watercolor illustrations are a great combination with the action and passion of the text.  This fun story would be a great read-aloud, too!

This is the second book by this author/illustrator that I’ve read (the other being Dancing with Grandma), and I’ve loved them both.  The illustrations are utterly charming, and the stories are whimsical and fanciful, even while they are very relatable (and I like that the grandparents are spunky).  This one tells of a young boy spending the day with his grandfather, and all the adventures they get up to (at least in their imaginations) with the things they find laying around Grandpa’s    shed and yard, from tree house and tire swinging to building a race car, rocket, and sailboat, and battling dragons in the bargain.

It’s fine.  I suppose it’s a good idea for all library collections to include a story about the kid who doesn’t want to have a babysitter, and this would work, but I’m not sure you can’t find better out there.  It’s a pretty basic story:  Tiny Troll is watching his mother get ready to go out for the evening, protesting that he doesn’t want a sitter, kindly older sitter comes, Mom goes, Tiny Troll throws tantrum, calm and nurturing sitter wins him over with mudmilk (monster equivalent to cocoa?) and a story, Tiny Troll falls asleep, and Mom returns safely.   The only thing that makes it particularly unique is the monster twist.

This fictional story set in France in the late 1800s describes an encounter between a young girl and artist Camille Claudel.  When Mademoiselle Claudel comes to stay for a time at the home of the girl’s grandmother, the famous sculptor helps the young girl look at the world and develop her own artistic skills while using the girl as a model for her own work.  A blurb in the back of the book shares the historical facts which inspired the story.  The soft illustrations suit the story and the setting.  A glossary in the front of the book (including pronunciation guide) introduces young readers to the French words sprinkled throughout the story.

A beautiful book, in illustrations and in sentiment, for young children.  With just 2 to three lines per page, told in rhyme, it works through a variety of animals, showing parents nestled with their young in a variety of animal homes, always keeping their young “safe and sound.”  It’s sappy, but in a good way.

In this poem, a young boy walks us through his day, sharing how his feelings shift as different things happen, each time comparing his mood to a color.  A good pairing to go with Dr. Seuss’s My Many Colored Days.  Also a good tool for helping children talk about their feelings, or for teaching about the figurative language of poetry.

Beautifully illustrated non-fiction, addressing the question as to what happens to insects in the winter, when we don’t notice them around anymore.  Each two-page spread takes on another insect, using the approach of, “If you were a…” to offer a few sentences about what that insect does to survive the cold of winter.  In the back of the book, a section on “More about the Insects in this book” offers further details, with a paragraph on each.  On the one hand, I wish those extra paragraphs had been offered directly on the pages for each insect, but perhaps that would have detracted from the artwork, which really is one of the assets of this book.

With text all in Spanish, this information-rich book was a bit beyond my Spanish skills to adequately review it, so I handed it to one of my native-spanish-speaking second-grade teachers, who teaches a unit on rocks, and asked her to tell me what she thought.  She says she would recommend it.  Features she approved up were that it is well-organized, has an attractive layout and color photographs, uses high-academic vocabulary and appropriate grammar, highlights important vocabulary, and incorporates additional and relevant elements related to the topic.  As a librarian, I approve of the sturdy binding, and the complete range of non-fiction text features, including headings, index, glossary, charts, etc.

Cotton-candy sweet, it’s probably best suited to a public library that serves the pre-school crowd.  It tells the story of a young polar bear, used to spending all his time with Mom, who is trying to make a new friend.  Things don’t work out with the seagull, the seal, the penguins, or the walrus, but when he takes a break from his search, another young polar bear comes along, and the two have fun together.  The pink and white cover, with the i in the title dotted with a heart, and the fuzzy bears will appeal to young girls.

Every children’s library needs something along these lines to offer as reassurance to kids who are going to have to visit the hospital, and this one is cute.  Kids who already enjoy the other Little Princess stories will especially appreciate it.  When the Princess is informed she’s going to need to visit the hospital, she insists she doesn’t want to go, despite all the positives those around her offer in reassurance.  When she is finally hogtied and dragged in, they treat her like a princess, so she wants to go back.

So this is not a folk song with which I am familiar, but it’s fun to read.  It’s filled with non-sense words, telling a rather non-sensical tale about a mouse who lives with a tailor who bakes the mouse into a pie because he thought it would die because it had a chill.  The bright, cheerful illustrations expand on the words, giving the characters personality and helping to make sense of the non-sense, and the rhythm and rhyme just make it fun.  The complete text of the song is set to music in the back, and the last page offers what is known about the origins of the song.

Your basic pet story with cat and dog learning to get along:  Toby makes it very clear that he doesn’t like cats, but the neighbor’s cat comes to stay anyway.  Nobody ever notices all the trouble the cat causes, or the things Toby wants them to notice about him, but they always seem to notice when he’s getting into trouble.  In the end, they make friends after Toby gets the family’s attention when Pandora (the cat) is stuck in a tree. Kinda cute, but the illustrations are a bit drab.  Not a stand out.

Each page, or two-page spread contains a short, 3- to 4-panel cartoon, mostly wordless, ending in some sort of humorous twist in the last panel.  Useful for observation skills and as a tool for developing oral or written language skills by having students describe what is happening.  But there are better wordless stories that serve similar purposes.

The simple, straightforward text is presented in both English and Spanish.  It gives some basic information about money (how much cents makes a dollar, the names of the coins, etc.) and considers different ways coins can be sorted.  My problem with the book is that the only two ways to sort coins that actually serve a real-world purpose are to sort by type of coin and by value, which is really the same thing, but this book dedicates two separate pages to these ways, and also sorts by size, color, and whether or not there are ridges on the edges.  I guess this is fine as a study of sorting, but serves little purpose to understanding money, other than guiding introductory observations.

Adequate information, but nothing to make it special, and the illustrations are a little odd.  There are so many books on Martin Luther King Jr. that are so much better, I can’t imagine spending money on something that’s just adequate.

A solid choice to support earth science curriculum.  The text is clear and straightforward, easily accessible, with an attractive layout, and color photos and diagrams to suppport the text. Organized into chapters that address what soil is, how it forms, layers of soil, what it looks like, and how to take care of it, it taught me a few things. I did wish that in the chapter about how to take care of soil there had been some mention of how composting can help return nutrients into the earth. The binding is shiny and sturdy-looking, too.

The story opens as young Hope is presented with the gift a a conch shell from her father as he says goodbye before running away to fight for the North to help bring an end to slavery during the American Civil War.  It goes on to tell how this shell becomes a symbol of hope for her as she misses her father and worries about him for over two years as they wait to gain their freedom. I had a hard time deciding how to rate this one: it’s a nice little story with nice illustrations, but I still don’t think I can really go so far as to recommend it, as it seems a rather sanitized story to tell about such an ugly, brutal time in American history.

The cartoonish sketches and simple, yet direct story do a a good job of making a political statement about the silliness of war.  When this grumpy little king is pouting about not being big and powerful enough, his advisors suggest he start a war to gain fame and stature, so he readies his troops and sends them forth with the order to attack.  When his soldiers declare they are ready to follow their king into war, they look around and realize he’s not actually there, but back at the castle having tea. The soldiers from both sides collected their respective kings handed them weapons and stood them facing each other, but the two kings were too scared that they might get hurt, so everybody goes home and the war is over.  Wouldn’t it be nice if all wars were handled so directly?  I’m not actually sure what grade to recommend this for, as it might best suit as a discussion starter in a high-school world problems class.

I wish I could give this book a stronger recommendation.  The text is rather lyrical and poetical, speaking of dreams and hopes for peace, and the soft flowey illustrations suit the text.  If you wanted to support a unit of study on Afghanistan or interpreting creative writing, this could be a worthy choice.  I just wish it had some sort of forward to place it in context so that it would stand alone better with young readers.  Students will need to be given some background, in order to make meaning from this book.

Well, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to call these mysteries.  They’re word problems. They’re good word problems (real-world situations, all the necessary information provided, but leave the solver to figure out what to do with the information, well explained), but still, they’re word problems.  Twelve story problems are put forth, each on it’s own page, and on the reverse of that page the answer is preceded by an explanation of one way to solve the problem.  It does what it’s trying to do well, so if you’re looking to fill a niche like this, I could recommend this title, but I don’t imagine it’s likely to have a lot of circulation, as it is unlikely students will self-select it, and most teachers already have an arsenal of materials they draw from.  Also, I do wish they would have made more of a point of stating that the solutions offered represent one way to think about the situation, rather than just presenting it as THE solution.

Well, I’m not overly fond of the illustrations — they’re a bit on the drab side, but the story is even more drab: neither believable nor interesting.  When the princess refuses to sleep (at all, ever) no one in the kingdom can sleep, so they bring in all sorts of folks who try all sorts of things, from singing to stories to counting sheep, and nothing works.  Then the prince rolls into town, shouts “Silence,” the princess falls asleep and the prince falls in love.  The end.

What a beautiful bedtime story!  The illustrations are charming and delightful.  The story is something every child can relate to: a little girl who doesn’t want to go to bed.  As her parents tuck her into bed, she asks if everything sleeps, and they discuss several different animals and the way they sleep.  She insists she’s still not sleepy, but as she emulates each of the animals they discussed, she gently drifts off.

It’s a simple, sweet, charmingly illustrated story about a Mama duck who went for a walk with her little ducklings one day, but the little ones fell through the gaps in a storm drain.  Luckily the problem is noticed by some friendly humans who work together to rescue the ducklings and send them on their way. I’ve got two gripes with the story that keep it from getting a higher rating: 1) it feels like it’s trying to be the next Make Way for Ducklings, but it falls a little short, and 2) the cover declare it to be a “true rescue story,” but though it may be based on a true story, as soon as the author starts interpreting Mama Duck’s quacking to represent human speech, it stops being able to claim the “true story” label.