This book “celebrates some of the thousands of mammals that never get seen or talked about even though they are every bit as amazing or weird or beautiful as their overexposed cousins.”  This book shines the limelight on some of the alternative mammals out there.  Among the interesting animals included in this book are one of the few poisonous mammals, an armadillo that plugs it’s burrow with its armored back end, a weasel-like creature that stinkier than a skunk, an underwater mole with a snorkel-like nose, a krill eating seal, and round eared rabbit-like creature.  For each of the 25 mammals highlighted in this book, there is a narrative description of what makes them interesting, illustrations, a map and basic facts about size, diet, habitat, and endangered status.  The illustrations are a bit cartoon-like, giving the animals personality.

Table of Contents incudes mini-portraits of each animal. Includes a large, partially illustrated Glossary.

Using simple text and colorful pictures, this book provides young readers with the physical characteristic, habitat, food, and life cycle of the camel. The habitat section includes a map of the Eastern Hemisphere.  Glossary terms are in red.  The way the glossary term ruminants is used in the text leads the reader to believe that it means “eats lots of food at once.” Quick Stats section at end of the book visually and numerically compares the camel’s height as shorter than a door and its weight as the same as a soda machine.  Contains a Table of Contents, Glossary, and Index.

Booklinks directs the reader to Abdo site where the book is selected using a search box.  The three provided links are to quality sites, but the content is significantly higher than the K-1 reading level of the book.  The reader is also encouraged to visit Abdo Zoom Animals database, but will have not access to the information, since it is a paid site.

Using simple text and colorful pictures, this book provides young readers with the physical characteristic, habitat, food, and life cycle of the orangutan. The habitat section includes a map of Southeast Asia.  Glossary terms are in red.  Quick Stats section at end of the book visually and numerically compares the orangutan’s height as shorter than a door and its weight as heavier than a toilet.  The former comparison has a difference of over 2 feet and the later comparison does not relate to something students experience as moveable.  Contains a Table of Contents, Glossary, and Index.

Booklinks directs the reader to Abdo site where the book is selected using a search box.  The three provided links are to quality sites, but the content is significantly higher than the K-1 reading level of the book.  The reader is also encouraged to visit Abdo Zoom Animals database, but will have not access to the information, since it is a paid site.

Using simple text and colorful pictures, this book provides young readers with the physical characteristic, habitat, food, and life cycle of the alligator. The habitat section includes a map.  Glossary terms are in red.  Quick Stats section at end of the book visually and numerically compares the alligator’s length to a sofa and its weight to a soda machine.  Contains a Table of Contents, Glossary, and Index.

Booklinks directs the reader to Abdo site where the book is selected using a search box.  The three provided links are to quality sites, but the content is significantly higher than the K-1 reading level of the book.  The reader is also encouraged to visit Abdo Zoom Animals database, but will have not access to the information, since it is a paid site.

This reprint of a classic tells of a neglected tree that just needed someone to care.  The young girl clears away the rubbish, rakes, hoes, and plants flowers so that in spring the now proud tree flourishes like never before. It’s branches, leaves and blossoms give way to apples until its producing, “Plenty of apples/delicious to eat/juicy and crunchy/crisp and sweet.”  Apples keep coming, “The more we ate/the more they grew/the more we wondered/what to do.” Finally at the Apple Festival they made a pig of themselves eating apples prepared in so many different ways.  And you’re invited next year.

A good choice to celebrate fall and harvest time.

Using simple text, this book focuses on the science and technology behind boats.  It starts with the physics concept of density and why boats float followed by how different forces such as wind, paddles, propellers and engines can make a boat move .  The engineering concepts focus on how differences in the shape of the hull affect its ability to cut through the water.  Math is incorporated when discussing relative wind strengths in relation to sailboats.

This book effectively balances the need to simplify difficult science concepts and the opposite need to maintain enough complexity to communicate complicated concepts.  A solid choice for a library looking for STEAM titles for young readers.

Contains a table of contents, glossary, online links and a index.

This is an cheerful portrayal of the first day of kindergarten.  Starting with excitement and nerves at home before school and moving on to the activities that take place in kindergarten.  Kindergarten is described more by the activities than the learning that takes place.  Nervousness makes way to optimism, “Now you’re BIG! You’re in school! And…. It really is cool!”

Colorful appealing illustrations portraying diverse smiling children.  I good choice for pre-school transition and the early days of kindergarten.

Reading can lead to curiosity and passion. Priscilla talks about gorillas “morning, noon and night” after her dad gives her an All About Gorillas book for her birthday.  Her love of gorillas becomes part of everything thing she does, from school to the grocery store to her cloths.  Sometimes her love for gorillas interferes with school.  Priscilla’s gorilla-like antics mean she’s spending a lot of time in the class’s thinking corner getting her the label of troublemaker. Priscilla’s dad points out that her book says that gorilla’s cooperate and if that she’s going to be a troublemaker she should choose a different animal, like a skunk.  After much thought, Priscilla apologizes to her teacher.  On a trip to the zoo the impact of her love of gorillas is clear when her classmates can share many interesting facts about gorillas.  When Priscilla demonstrates her gorilla dance, the gorilla responds with a dance of his own.

With photographs and simple text, this book provides an introduction to lizards.  The informational text on lizards includes common characteristics, habitat, and diet.  It also includes some specific information about the blue-tailed skink, gecko, and iguana.  The book would benefit from captions on the photographs.

Contains table of contents, glossary and index.

Linked online resources include photographs with a brief description of lizards.  Also included are downloadable print activities, links to elementary level informational websites, and a 4 minute video.  All links to external websites were dead links.

With photographs and simple text, this book provides an introduction to penguins.  The heavy use of pronouns, make the simple text less effective. Bold words defined in the glossary include waddle, webbed and flippers, but skips the word krill.

Contains table of contents, glossary and index.

Linked online resources include a more in depth description of penguins with more photographs.  Also included are downloadable print activities, links to elementary level informational websites, and a 1 and a half minutes video.  One of the website links was dead link.