The illustrations are cute, but the story is lame.  It’s basically about a chameleon who’s all excited to see a sign declaring him “King of the Zoo,” until he tours the zoo, seeing the same sign on all the animals and throwing a temper tantrum over not being the best, until he’s all happy again when one little visitor declares him to be her favorite.  We never have an explanation for what the purpose is of the signs, and the chameleon never learns that it’s not a competition.  There doesn’t seem to be a point other than to provide an excuse to draw a cute chameleon shifting shapes/colors.

It’s a fun little story about being proud of your differences.  Crispin is a young dragon who is at first horrified on his seventh birthday, when he’s supposed to start breathing  fire, to find that he breathes other stuff instead.  First his dad tries taking him to the doctor or school to solve the problem, then Crispin runs away to try to escape the problem, and then he befriends a young knight who tries to help him solve the problem, but in the end everyone realizes that being different isn’t necessarily a problem after all.  It helps that every time Crispin tries to breathe fire, whatever comes out instead happens to be whatever is most useful at that moment.  Dragons are always a hit, and this one is cute and conveying a good message.

I like the style of the artwork:  the colors are rich, the monsters are silly — they’re eye-catching.  I’m not sure if it’s a failing in the artwork or in the storyline, or in the connection between the two, but somewhere there is a lack.  This is a nearly wordless story (tag, you’re, & it are the only words), and as such it is dependent upon the strength of the pictures to tell the story.  Maybe it’s a matter of the story being too complicated to be well told in this format, but all the way through you’re never really sure what’s going on, or what the point is — it leaves too many questions unanswered in my opinion, but then maybe it’s going for that — leaving it to the reader’s interpretation?

The illustrations are absolutely charming!  I just wish the story lived up to the illustrations.  Mostly it’s about a bunch of sibling mice getting into one scrape and another before and after their sister’s wedding, and their mom being none too pleased about it.  It reads like a list of this one did that and that one did this, and it never seems to really lead anywhere or build to any kind of climax.

Somehow when I read this book, I picture Guido putting his kids to bed, and them begging Daddy to tell them a story, and this was what he came up with.  It’s just kinda silly and fun:  all around the world a bunch of large animals are in trouble of one kind and another, and somehow Super Ladybug finds out and comes to everyone’s rescue, with just the right tool for the job (except I personally think his “wonderful water tank” looked too small to do a decent job of refilling the camel’s humps).  Some kids will think it’s just the silliest thing. Who need why or how?

I think I need to stop selecting books by this publisher:  I seem to always find them a bit odd.  The illustrations in this one are beautiful, and perhaps the youngest readers will be content to look at the pictures and make up their own stories, but I doubt many of my students will enjoy the story.  I don’t know whether it’s because the story was originally written in another language, and something was lost in translation, or if it is a matter of cross-cultural disconnect in the accustomed manner of story-telling, but I found it long and rambling without much of a story arc to follow.

I love the bright, vivid, folk-art illustrations, but the story falls flat.  It basically takes a whole lot of words to tell the reader that this guy had a bunch of troublesome goats that his wives wanted him to get rid of, but his kids wanted him to keep, and he took them to market to sell them, but kids kept whining, moms gave in, and when he returned he ended up with even more goats.  It tells us he was surprised to discover the extra goats, without ever telling us where they came from, and there’s not enough plot or character development for the reader to care about the goats.  Too many words to not really tell us much.

Though fans will enjoy the familiar character, and the story is definitely a common problem faced in expanding families (when the little princess is told about a pending addition to the family, she insists she only wants a sister, no matter how many times she is reminded it may turn out to be a brother), I personally find the little princess to be a bit annoying.  It’s fine, and if you need another new-baby-on-the-way book, it might fill a useful niche, but how many of those does a library really need?

It’s got a decent message it’s trying to get across: don’t get so wrapped up in the future that you miss the present.  But I had a hard time getting especially excited about either the plot or the illustrations — both seem a bit under-developed.  Stewart is a rather ugly little monster who is having a hard time waiting for his first camping trip, and he terrorizes his parents trying to speed up time, until he talks things over with a classmate who is dreading vacation because she’ll miss school; then they both agree to enjoy the present, and before he knew it he was camping.

Henry is a very tidy little pig who likes the comfort of knowing that everything is in its place.  To ensure a nice, tidy farm, Henry sets out to draw a map of all the animals in the farmyard.  As he ventures around the farm, explaining what he’s doing, all the other animals get so excited about being included that they start trailing around after Henry.  Once the map is completed, Henry leads all of his companions to the top of a hill so he can show them how the map represents the farm, only to be dismayed to find the animals are no longer where the map indicates, and they must all scurry around and return order.

Another nearly wordless tale told almost exclusively through the artwork of David Wiesner — a great tool for pre-readers to begin reading pictures, and likewise as a writing prompt for older students.  Mr. Wuffles is a house cat, with a multitude of store-bought toys in which he seems to show little interest, but as the page zooms, we see that amidst these toys is a small alien spaceship, inhabited by tiny green people.  As Mr. Wuffles starts batting this new “toy,” the tiny aliens are sent for quite a tumble and and apparently important part of their vessel is damaged. Along their quest to find replacement parts for their ship, the little green people make the acquaintance, and gain the assistance, of the household insects who must also hide from Mr. Wuffles.

Though the audience may be limited to the youngest students, and the story consists of only three sentences, describing a snail’s journey, the illustrations are simply gorgeous, and it serves multiple purposes, from launching a discussion about perspective, to finding prepositions and adjectives.  Highly Recommended!

Young Dodo is out on a walk with Mom, but he seems to run into one problem after another, from his singing waking up the baby chicks, to collecting rocks that aren’t really rocks, to making friends with a skunk.  He bravely powers through all catastrophes and is rewarded with a beautiful vista when he and Mom make it to their destination.  Unfortunately one last problem awaits him when he finds the day has worn him out too much to walk home again.  The illustrations are cheerful and inviting and young readers will enjoy commiserating with someone else getting into scrapes they could probably imagine for themselves.

A trickster tale!  When Elmer’s friends ask for Snake’s guidance in tricking Elmer, Snake gives them an idea, but then goes to Elmer with an idea to turn the tables and trick his friends instead.  A great story to share on April Fool’s Day, there’s nothing malicious about any of the tricks, and everyone ends up laughing.  Elmer fans will enjoy the familiar characters and colors of McKee’s bright jungle world.

A delightful tale, told in rhythm and rhyme, about the joys of including one and all.  Panda starts out planning a panda party, until he realizes he is the only panda at the zoo.  He decides to expand the guest list to include all bears, until his friend Koala Bear points out that he’s not really a bear, but a marsupial.  And so the party expands to include all mammals, until Rhino RSVPs that he won’t attend without his bird.  And so things go until the party is open to all creatures at the zoo, and just as the party is about to begin, a new creature arrives — another panda to join the fun.  An author’s note in the back provides additional scientific information about many of the animals mentioned in the story.

A beautiful Christmas story, told from the perspective of the birds.  Old owl is reminiscing about the song heard by birds at the first Christmas, and looking out on a world that seems to have stopped listening.  All the birds gather and hatch a plan to share their song with the children, who have more open hearts, ready to listen to it.  Bird to bird, child to child, they share their song of Peace on Earth.  The illustrations are soft and wintery.  The final page includes a montage of the word Peace in a multitude of languages.

Both story and illustrations are absolutely charming.  A forest full of assorted animal friends are doing their best to cheer up Mouse, who seems to be in a bit of a slump.  Each tries to offer a solution that s/he would like best: Crow tries to take him for a ride in the sky, Frog for a dip in the pond, etc. In the end, Chipmunk’s simple hug is what finally does the trick, and everyone gathers around for a group hug.  It just makes you go, Ahhh!

We all know kids like Suki:  the one who makes up all the games and always seems to have the lead part, telling others what to do.  And everyone likes hearing the story of what happens when a new bunny comes to town who doesn’t give in to the queen (that would be Mirabella).  When Suki’s usual followers start trailing around after Mirabella, the inevitable round of one-up-manship ensues, until a formal contest is proposed, with a daisy crown to go to the winner.  Sure enough the two contestants find they can only manage together, and when the crown splits in two, they declare  both to be winners, each with a tiara instead of a single crown.

I really like the story.  I wish I liked the illustrations more.  It’s not even the illustrations themselves I object to, but I’ve been noticing a trend lately in too many picture books that I don’t like:  the only word I can find for the color scheme is drab.  The story itself is great — it’s so many elements that so many folks can relate to: moving to a new neighborhood, wishing for a tree house, father-sons bonding activity, brotherly bonding, little brother’s remorse as big brother moves on to new interests/friends, community bonding during a summer black-out, reconnecting.  I like the use of silhouette, but I just can’t get past the drabness of the colors in the rest of the illustration.

The surface tale of a favorite baby-sitter putting his young charges to bed is the setting for sharing a litany of old classic childhood rhymes.  Every time Skinny Doug shares one of the old classics, the children shout for him to say it again, but he always delays until some other time, offering instead that, “I’ll tell you another I heard from my mother:”  and so the children hear of bed bugs that bite, the old man who went to bed and bumped his head, the piggies who went to market, and a handful of other old classics.  The simple cartoon-like illustrations insert the children and their sitter into the heart of each of the old rhymes.  A great way to share some old classics.

A delightfully charming, silly, mash-up showing what happens when one invites a T-Rex to a tea party.  The humor in this story comes from combining the illustrations with the text.  Taken alone, the genteel text is simply a manners manual instructing one on the proper etiquette when inviting guests to tea.  It’s the silly illustrations that demonstrate the riotous results when applied to dinosaurs.  Fun for all!

Though perhaps intended primarily for pre-school audiences, early elementary students who have younger brothers or sisters at home will certainly recognize the typically toddler behaviors that keep landing Sophie in time-out.  When grandma turns the tables at the end and puts herself in time-out, Sophie comes to her rescue and all is well.

This nonfiction book placed the vocabulary words at the BEGINNING of the book, instead of the end.  It’s after the fact at the end.  Appreciated is the no nonsense explanation of the anatomy, homes, and lifecycle of bees.  The photos in the book were exceptional.   Missing is a geography page where we can locate these creatures on the planet.  Also a scale of size would be nice, how about a page comparing it to a common house fly, ant, robin, etc. so that the students could practice compare and contrast. Also, this reviewer wasn’t able to get to the suggested website, http://readysetflow.org/activitysheets/index.html.  Additional purchase

Romance is the spark  that  ignites interest in this fantasy novel about spell seekers and curse casters by the husband and wife writing team of Cremer and Levithan. Each writer has individually authored popular Young Adult Fiction novels.   In Invisibility, they alternate each chapter between the voice of the invisible boy, Stephen, and the emotions and observations of his “ordinary” friend, Elizabeth,  the new girl in the next  apartment .  A lonely, awkward young woman from the mid-west, new to New York and happy to blend into anonymity of the big city of New York, Elizabeth is the only one who can see Stephen.   No surprises in the plot that the only person who can see the invisible boy may be the one who can break the curse put on him by a vengeful grandfather.  This is an easy read with the only memorable, serious note being the tender, insightful manner in which the sexual coming out  the younger brother is handled.  Recommended with limited enthusiasm.

The illustrations in this book are certainly eye-catching as they are contrasting colors and full of textures.  Some of the things that are being compared are beyond many students’ experiences and the large numbers are so random that in some ways it’s interesting and in others it’s not so much.  Who cares if the Empire State Building in New York is the same as 264 gorillas, which I doubt.  Unless you’ve even been to New York and experienced the Empire State Building, how would kids distinguish it from any other building?  Where we live buildings aren’t very tall due to earthquakes, so size is relative.  It seems it would make more sense if the size grew exponentially but it’s so random, like 1,226,880 peas in a manatee–really?