It’s one of those books that’s meant to help parents talk to their children about where babies come from.  The story opens with a young boy getting the news from his parents that they’re going to get a new baby.  Wondering just where they’ll be getting this baby from, he spends his day asking everyone he knows where babies come from, including his baby sitter, his teacher, his grandfather, and the mailman, but he’s not satisfied with any of their answers (babysitter says you plant a seed and a baby tree grows; grandpa says the stork leaves ’em on the doorstep; teacher says hospital; mailman says eggs).  So at the end of the day he asks his folks, who give him a basic clinical answer.  When he thinks over their explanation, he decides all the other folks had a piece of the puzzle except grandpa. The back of the book offers parents some suggested answers for when kids start asking for more details.  All in all, it’s a good tool for opening conversations between kids and adults, but be prepared for some parents who are not happy with information being available that they maybe aren’t ready to share yet.

I liked it.  This is the first book in this series that I read, and one thing I liked right off is though it is book five in the series, it provided enough background about characters and previous events that I was able to pick up in the middle and understand just fine.  Elementary school kids often pick up series books in the middle, and it’s good if reading them in order isn’t too important.  This one recounts the adventures the Spence Mansion trio face when their heads get turned by Hollywood promises and sign dastardly contracts with a producer who wants to butcher their story as he makes his own film.  The characters are fun. The writing is witty.  The illustrations are mixed with letters in a format that makes the book not too intimidating for reluctant/young readers.

I didn’t like it as well as I liked the other books in this series that I’ve read.  I rather felt it was misnamed.  In the first chapter, setting the scene for the paths the reader will have to choose from, the book describes the Great Migration as the time when so many black families were moving north to escape the unfair treatment in the south, and I think “The Great Migration” would’ve been a more accurate title, as many of the story lines tracked the decisions and experiences folks encountered in getting to Harlem at this time, but many of them ended with their arrival, without really going into much about what happened when they got there.  Also, though I like the interactive nature of these books for drawing student interest, they walk a fine line between non-fiction and historical fiction, and I think this one really falls more into the second category than the first.

This is a beautiful book and Bang and Chisholm have taken a difficult, complex subject and made it understandable through text illustrations.  They have explained how fossil fuels have come to be and how humans use them, and go on to explain how so much usage has changed the earth.  There is no need for speculation if climate change exists, it has been scientifically proven that it does.  The authors do not use scare tactics but does compare the past to the  present to demonstrate how the earth is warming and poses the question to the reader, what can you do about it?

Strictly for the youngest readers, this spin-off from the Llama Llama books brings a familiar character her own book, full of the same brightly colored illustrative style, they rhyme and rhythm and repetition that are so good for emergent readers.  The story is a simple one of sharing a day one-on-one with a father-daughter project, building a play house from some large cardboard boxes.  Young kids will love it, and be begging their dads to help them build their own similar houses.

It’s cheesy.  The characters have kid bodies and giant baseballs for heads.  They’re each named after a different kind of ball (Sammy Softball, Connie Curveball, etc.), and each character’s personality traits/powers resemble the term they’re named after (e.g. the Foul Ball gang are the bullies).  The kids who are old enough to know enough about baseball to appreciate the sport references are going to think the illustrations are babyish and the story rather lame, and the kids young enough to enjoy the illustrations and the predictable plot are not going to get the baseball terms.

A short simple story, with only a sentence or so per page, it’s definitely intended for the youngest audiences.  While everyone else is busy with things to do around the yard, a young boy goes off to play pirate with his stuffed raccoon, including snitching his sister’s stuffed bunny, who ends up in the lake.  After returning the sopping bunny and facing the music, the bunny goes missing again, for which the boy gets blamed.  Over the course of the afternoon and evening the boy’s toys also go missing, and if the reader is watching the illustrations, they see that a real raccoon is the culpret, which the boy discovers in the morning, declaring the sneaky raccoon to be a real troublemaker.  Very young readers will enjoy knowing that they know things the characters don’t.

A gold emblem on the cover proclaims, “Celebrating 25 years of Katie!”  It’s published in Australia and set in London, so perhaps there are children in one or both of those countries who would know who Katie is, but unfortunately, there’s nothing in the book to give us any background on who Katie is or why we’re supposed to celebrate her.  The story opens with Katie and her grandmother visiting London’s National Gallery, and when Grandma needs to rest she sends Katie off to explore on her own. The plot consists of Katie ignoring the “Please do not touch” signs and jumping into one famous painting after another, snatching a piece of pie from one, sharing a cup of tea in another, playing with another child in another, playing with a tiger, and falling through an abstract before being rescued by the museum guard.  I’m sure it would make a great souvenir for children visiting this museum, and it might make a good introduction before a class were to take a field trip to a museum.  As a general interest read it’s okay, if perhaps a little flat.

I guess it’s okay.  It’s got a good message it’s trying to convey.  It just left me a little flat.  And the message (“magic must come from within”), though clearly stated in so many words, didn’t really come through the actual story itself, but seemed to be laid over top of the story:  if it hadn’t been deliberately pointed out, I don’t think that would have been the take-away of readers from the events alone.

The story is cute, and kids will enjoy feeling in the know, as they recognize the mistakes the dog is making throughout the story.  Max the dog is asked by the farmer to try to catch a thief who’s been stealing all the carrots, berries, beans and cherries.  After spotting a small blue bug nibbling a leaf, Max sets off to catch it, passing along the way a rabbit, a pig, a goat, and some crows amidst the carrots, berries, beans and cherries, asking each if they’ve seen the thief, never connecting them as possible culprets. After chasing the bug across the entire farm, Max returns to report proudly that he’s scared the thief away for good, and the other animals decide to throw a party to celebrate, gathering and eating the rest of the farm’s produce.  My one criticism has to do with the visuals.  I don’t think I’ve ever found fault with a book’s font before, but there’s something about this one that bothered me:  the color palate of the illustrations is a little on the dark side, and the print is not very big or bold, and sometimes seems to be a bit lost on the page.

A beautiful poem that unites humanity by celebrating all the things we have in common with others across the globe (e.g. ” We’ve work to do and loads to bring, and tales to tell and songs to sing.”)  The text uses the simple pronoun we, but the illustrations show examples of life from all different cultures around the world, showing just how big “we” can be.  I think it’s fabulous!

I’m a huge fan of Chris Van Allsburg, but I was a little bit disappointed with this one (not enough to turn me off Van Allsburg as a rule, but a enough to say there’s no rush to run out and get this one).  At first I didn’t even recognize Van Allsburg’s usually distinctive artwork style — this one is very pastel, lots of pink — turns out he’s got daughters.  The story tells of a rather grumpy hampster who experiences a series of homes: first purchased from the pet store by a girl who soon loses interest, before being sold to a boy whose dog proves to be a bit of a terror; then being handed over to a cousin who liked to dress him up in doll’s clothes and bought him an outdoors exercise ball in which he rolls away.  Found by a girl whose mom doesn’t allow pets, he gets taken to school where he is adopted as a class pet, until the kid responsible for taking care of him over the holiday vacation forgets him on the playground.  Escaping from his cage in some unknown manner, he finds freedom and his true home getting himself adopted into a nest of squirrels. The illustrations are fun, and exhibit Van Allsburg’s effective play with perspective, and all the scenarios are believable problems faced by hamsters, but one hamster facing them all seems a bit extreme, and worse, there’s nothing to really make the reader care about his problems.  It’s a little flat.

The cartoon Tom and Jerry are at least 50 years old and what was funny then, isn’t so funny now.  The characters got away with a lot that we laughed at, but nowadays those same actions will get you in trouble.  This is called an interactive book because Tom appears to be speaking to the reader(s).  Not so fun for the reader with a class of 25 kiddos.  At the end, Jerry lures Tom to come closer and closer and then burps loudly in his ear.  Kids don’t even know if they can laugh at this anymore.  Not everything old is fondly remembered.

Fairy tales are often rewritten but this is a fresh take on four classic princesses who are tired of their story and want to switch places.  This tale is a perfect fit for the idiomthe grass isn’t always greener on the other side.  As they switch the princesses think the other girl has it better, but it doesn’t take long for them to long for their own home.  Of course, they switch back.  The book is a good example for girls that if you are unhappy with your lot in life, change is possible, and you don’t have to move.  The illustrations are colorful and appealing to kids.  The rhyming text sometimes gets awkward, but the story is worth it.

It’s a story within a story, with multiple levels of meaning.  The introductory story is of a young mouse who is frightened during a storm, having previously experienced a destructive hurricane; her papa calms her with a story, a nod to the power of books.  The story he shares, told in rhyme, tells of a violent storm that destroys all a rhino holds dear, and the rhino reacts by swallowing the storm, but as a result finds himself alone at the bottom of a very deep hole.  The rest of the story, which involves the other animals helping to rescue Rhino from the hole, coming together to starting putting their world to rights, and counseling Rhino to let go of the storm he’s holding inside, is both a literal and a figurative story, both about communities working together to assist each other after devestation does occur, and about the dangers of holding our emotions bottled up inside.  It’s a comforting story to help young children recognize that bad things do happen, but we’re never really left alone to cope with them.

The big-eyed, big-nosed, brightly colored, cartoonish illustrations will be familiar to students who are fans of Charlie Cook’s Favorite Book, A Gold Star for Zog, the Gruffalo, or any of Scheffler’s other work.  The story, told in rhyme, describes two scarecrows who fall in love and decide to marry.  After wandering the farm to find the things they need for their wedding, Betty stays behind while Harry sets off to find the last thing on their list, pink flowers, and water to keep them fresh.  The search takes Harry longer than he expected, and while he’s gone the farmer builds a new scarecrow to take his place, who goes by the name of Reginald Rake.  Needless to say, Rake proves to be an arrogant cad, who nearly sets Betty on fire when he drops his cigar, but Harry returns just in time with his bucket of water and flowers, which he dumps on the flames to save Betty’s life.  It’s cute.

I am disappointed in Kids Can Press.  I usually like their stuff, but I can’t figure out the  purpose of this book.  It’s a Halloween book, with cute illustrations that will attract children, but story is nothing but gobblety-gook.  I’m a fan of the classic nonsense poem, The Jabberwocky, and Dr. Seuss of course created wonderful books full of made-up words, but this just doesn’t hold together.  It doesn’t even have good rhythm to read aloud smoothly, let alone create any meaning.  Ugh!

For kids who live in or near Sydney, Australia, or as a souvenir for a child visiting the city, I would recommend this book:  it’s told in rhyme, and the illustrations are kinda cool, mixed-media creations that support the text.  But for American school libraries, I don’t think it contains enough information to either be useful or garner much interest. The best I could think would be as a supplementary introduction tool before starting a unit on Australia, to have students gather unfamiliar terms/places that they would maybe be learning about in the coming unit.

The audience for Triceratops is preschool through first grade.  The text is large and the vocabulary is geared for the earliest of readers.  The information is adequate for a young child.  The photos are obviously taken from exhibits featuring life-like dinosaurs.  Younger boys usually can’t get enough of dinosaurs so this book is perfect for them.

Caterina loves riding her scooter and wants to buy another one.  She decides to make a lemonade stand but she knows that in order to make money she will have to have outstanding lemonade and a stand that will attract customers.  Erin Kono is the author and illustrator of this book and her creativity is clearly seen in her beautiful designs and colors.  You have to admire Caterina’s creativity and work ethic, but at the end of the story you’ll see that Caterina isn’t doing this for herself.  She is buying a scooter for Leo, her little brother.  The message is a good one for kids to read about.

Kids are fascinated by robots and this book, Zoobots, explain how scientists have studied animals and applied the animal’s skills to a machine.  Each pair of pages depicts a real animal and the robot which mimics it.  A picture of the animal, it’s characteristics and behavior are explained and then a picture of the robot, it’s abilities and purposes are explained.  Scientists have really tried to replicate features which will be able to do jobs to help mankind.  Those kids scientifically oriented will love this book.

The Queen and Mr. Brown is a charming picture book about Queen Elizabeth of England and her corgi, Mr. Brown, who decide to spend the day at the Natural History Museum.  After a long walk, they arrive and see all sorts of dinosaur skeletons.  Getting tired, the Queen sits on a bench and falls asleep dreaming of Ascot, a horse racing venue in England, and she is riding a dinosaur.  She is awakened by a guard who tells her it’s closing time and she and Mr. Brown goes home.  The illustrations are colored pencil drawings, and it’s easy to recognize the Queen, but all the dinosaurs look the same.  The text/story does give some brief facts about dinosaurs, but not much. American students who heard the story did not know who the Queen was, and it would not have made any difference.  This is probably a book best used in England.

Animals on the African Savanna follows animals around from sun-up to sundown.  Every two pages constitute a chapter, and the table of contents shows a nickel-size picture of the chapter subject along with the chapter title telling where the animals are and at what time of their day.  Each two-page spread shows a vignette of the savanna with one of the native animals.  I could not figure out if they were photographs or illustrations, but I see that there is an illustrator, not photographer, that’s given credit.  The picture fades to blur along the outside edges and the inside of the picture shows one of the animals in nice detail and color.  Each chapter also has insets that are a little larger than a quarter coin depicting other animals which might be seen at that particular location.  The text is in a large font and readable, however young children won’t understand many of the words.  I usually update my non-fiction collection with books which have outstanding photography that captures the creatures in action with every little detail shown; photos that almost as good as being there.  This book just doesn’t meet my standard.

The two main characters, Prince Aspen and Snail, are as different as night and day.  The prince has been trained to be a royal and Snail is an apprentice midwife.  Aspen is a hostage prince.  His father, a king of the neighboring Seelies, exchanged him with a son of a king of the Unseelies.  If a war were to break out between the two kingdoms, the princes would be the first to be killed, so this is their way to prevent war.  However, Jack, a traitorous ‘friend’ to Aspen, has told him war is about to break out and he will help him escape to go home.  This is all a lie in order to kill Aspen.  Snail and other midwives and their apprentices are locked up in a dungeon about to be sentenced to death for their bungling in the queen’s birth of a new child.  Snail escapes and hooks up with Aspen to find their way out, encountering a myriad of creatures and soldiers.  Aspen may be the prince but it is Snail and her wits and common sense that save them.  They finally make it to Aspen’s home only to find out that there is no war brewing.  The king decides that Aspen’s return might actually cause a war and orders him killed.  He and Snail escape, again, and she thinks they should begin a new free life and he wants to stop the war.  Good descriptive characterization and  plot,  lots of surprise action.  Should be a hit with fantasy lovers.  This is book one of a new trilogy.

In June 1941, Otto and Leni, two young refugees from the Nazis living in England, are sent on a secret mission to Bavaria, to extract a young girl attending summer camp, and who may hold the key to the war.  Filled with suspense and plenty of action, this WWII novel should appeal to both boys and girls.  The relationship established by hero Otto and heroine Leni adds to the interest of the story.  But who is this young girl they’ve been sent to “rescue” and return to England?  Could it be Hitler’s daughter?  An addendum to the book explains the historical figures appearing in the book and the roles they played in true life WWII on both the German and English sides.  Surprise ending holds the reader to the very last!