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.

With photographs and simple text, this book provides an introduction to the White House.  The heavy use of pronouns, particularly the word “it” make the simple text less effective.

Contains table of contents, glossary and index.

Linked online resources include a more in depth description of the White House with photographs.  Also included are downloadable print activities, links to elementary level informational websites, and a 2 minutes video of still animation, music, and textual information.  All online material are more appropriate for grades 2-5 so it does not match the audience of the actual book.

Is there anything a dog loves more than a treat? Woken from a dream of treats by an encouraging smell, the dog races off for the chance to earn any sort of treat. He tries all his best tricks first for a toddler eating cheerios, then a young girl with a hot dog, a young boy coloring with no food, grandma with dentures in a glass, grandpa brushing his teeth and finally an infant with a bottle.  His discouragement is evident until finally he’s called to his bowl for a treat, only to find it filled with toys not treats. Dejected, he retreats to pile of laundry to dream of his lost treats.  As the dream turns into a nightmare of monstrous dentures chasing him, he wakes to the call of “treeeeeeat….” The 2 girls have created a masterpiece of topped with dog bones and chunks of dried dog food.  What a treat!

The word, “treat” is the only word in the book.  The tone and expression in the repeated word, “treat”is seen in the expression of the dog and supported by the punctuation, font size and style.  Sure to be a hit as a read aloud but also a good example of the power of expression to convey meaning.

The animal world is a diverse interesting place.  What do things as different as a zebra and a bumblebee or a hedgehog and a chameleon have in common?  This book explores differences while highlighting the similarities.  Each two page spread contains four illustrated animals and a description of how they are different in some way; appearance, behavior, or habitat. Then readers are invited to look closer.  Each spread closes with the unifying similarity, “We all have…”

The animal illustrations have expressive cartoon-ish expressions. The back matter contains explanations of why animals have each of the similar characteristics described in the book.

Use this title to invite young children to think critically about the world around them. Use in a science lesson or to help students recognize their similarities to the many diverse people of the world.

Whoosh is science success story of an African American man made particularly accessible to students by their first-hand knowledge of one of his inventions, the Super Soaker. The story begins with Lonnie’s childhood in Mobile, Alabama and the challenges he faced in pursuing his love of invention. Lonnie wanted to be an engineer, but an exam he took said he would not be a very good one. He was not discouraged by this challenge either.  At a 1968 science fair at the University of Alabama (only 5 years after allowing their first African American students), Lonnie’s home-made robot named Linex won his team first place.  From there he studied engineering at the Tuskegee Institute before working at NASA on the Galileo probe to Jupiter.  And still Lonnie tinkered with his own inventions at home. He came up with the Super Soaker idea while investigating refrigeration and air conditioning systems that were better for the environment than than those that used R-12.  One toy company after another refused to produce his invention.  His attempt to produce his inventions on his own flopped, leaving him in a discouraging and difficult financial situation.  He asked yet another toy company and they said “Wow” and now Super Soakers are sold everywhere.  With the money Lonnie earned from the sale of each Super Soaker, he now has an even bigger workshop where he continues to invent because, “facing challenges, solving problems, and building things is what Lonnie Johnson loves to do.”

This book belongs in every elementary library.

A single unhatched egg rests in a nest surrounded by four fluffy goslings.  Mother goose nudges the egg, “Hello in there! Are you aware…how long we’ve all been waiting?” A mother’s cajoling is picked up by the coots and crows. The world is moving through spring and life is brimming. The wait is measured by the bursting of buds and sprouts are breaking through.  The journey begins with, “A nest. An Egg. A chick like you.”  The four fluffy goslings look on as a beak breaks through the egg.  Finally the egg hatches a bewildered, bedraggled chick with a piece of shell still stuck to its beak. The gosling is urged out of the nest to discover, “The whole wide world is waiting.”

Warm colors and up close pictures lend the story intimacy and closeness.  The more panoramic views show the expanse of the world waiting to be explored.  The short rhythmic phrases feel like the baby steps picking up momentum until you’re running to catch up with spring.

Using short simple sentences, this book starts by introducing the concept of biome as a large area with certain plants, animals and climate. It then explains that marine waters are biomes.  Of the three main marine biomes, oceans are the largest.  Coral reefs and estuaries, the other main marine biomes, are glossed over and never clearly identified in the text with headings or bold font.  Nor do the three main biomes appears in the glossary. Confusing the reader more, coral reefs are part of the ocean, yet in the book are considered separate from ocean biomes. The book would benefit from the use of non-fiction text features to clarify the complex concept of biomes without adding complexity to the text.

A few examples of plants and animals are given.  The climate of coral reefs is described.

Contains Table of Contents, Glossary, and Index.

The book starts with a 18th century Japanese Haiku about a butterfly dreaming while folding its wings. The remainder of the pages contain alternating 3 and 4 line rhyming verses for snake, deer, newt, rabbit, mouse, and turtle. For each of the 6 dreaming animals in the book, the first page is a 4 line recounting of the animal’s activities during the day; the second page is 3 lines describing where the animal shelters at night to dream; the third page is 4 lines describing the animal’s dream; the fourth page is always a 3 line refrain, “Sleep, Little (animal)/ Safe and warm/ Dream until the light of morn.”  The Little Dreamer can be found exploring on each of the pages describing the animals day.  The book ends with the child, Little Dreamer asleep in bed dreaming of the six animals joining her until morn.

Rather than using this book as a bedtime read-aloud, use it for writing lessons focused on clear concise descriptive language and the use of text structure to reinforce a message.