Author Archives: Candy Ranney

About Candy Ranney

Candy is an elementary school librarian in Shelton, WA at the school where she was a student (so many years ago!). Her library is unique in that she brings her background and love of biology to her students in many ways. Not only does she have an awesome selection of science books; she also has a beaver, bobcat and mink sitting on her shelves and a variety of jarred specimens for her students to study. When she's not in the library, she is taking care of her baby trees on her tree farm and hanging out with her family and many pets. * 2025 WA Library Association School Librarian of the Year

Surfboard to Peril

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Miss Mallard, well-known “ducktective” has a big case to solve. She is vacationing in Hawaii and surfing with her instructors, Kai and Kawai when she hits a mysterious rock with her surfboard. It turns out that it is an ancient stone that proves the land is owned by both villages nearby. As the villagers are celebrating the stone and the answers it provides, it disappears! Miss Mallard is on the case. She dusts the area for featherprints and finds a suspicious keychain. She has three suspects, an archaeologist (Horace Shoveller), an old sailor (Joe Scaup) and a builder (Clyde Pochard) who is interested in developing the land. Through her quick wits and deductive reasoning, Miss Mallard captures the thief and restores the stone to its rightful place.

This story is a nice introduction to early chapter books, with a list of characters/descriptions in the front of the book and a glossary of potentially unfamiliar words in the back. Illustrations are black and white and the words are in larger font. Readers will enjoy this quick read and will enjoy the mystery that Miss Mallard solves for them.

A Royal Ride: Catherine the Great’s Great Invention

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Catherine the Great accomplished many things during her tenure in 1700’s Russia. She had a girls’ school built, wrote a book, built museums, fought battles and invented the first roller coaster. Yes, that’s true! She was a fan of ice slides, huge wooden structures coated with ice in the cold Russian winters, which had been around since the 1400’s. Unfortunately, the fun on ice slides ended each spring with the thaw. Catherine wanted to keep the fun rolling, so she sketched a design and her royal subjects got to work. She climbed forty feet to the top and rode the rails in a jewel-adorned roller coaster car. Then, she did it again and again!

This nonfiction book is a packed with information, including a timeline, author’s note, acknowledgements and bibliography. The ‘story’ of Catherine and her invention is written in simple language with accompanying illustrations add a colorful and sweet feel to the text. The book is geared toward the younger reader, but is packed with good information that will lead to further research. Very accessible nonfiction piece for those that need it.

One Wild Christmas

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Christmas is the best holiday ever for Bear, Beaver and Moose. They spend their first Christmas Eve together decorating, baking and preparing for the big day. Suddenly, they realize that they have forgotten to get a tree! They hasten into the woods to remedy the situation and find the perfect pine tree. Unfortunately, Bear just now realizes that the plan is to chop the tree down and he just can’t let that happen. So, he tosses his friends around a bit and ties them to the tree. He’s worried that his love of trees might ruin Christmas for his friends, but comes up with a fantastic compromise. He rushes home, grabs their holiday food, gifts and decorations and returns to his friends and the beautiful tree. Together, they set up a wonderful Christmas right there, decorating the live tree and enjoying it together.

Spare digital illustrations complement a simple story of misunderstanding and compromise among friends. Hopefully, readers won’t wonder why the bear didn’t realize earlier that the tree was supposed to be cut down. Instead, they will celebrate a caring and inventive group of friends that have a wonderful Christmas together…with a tree.

The Very Impatient Caterpillar

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So, this caterpillar is hanging out with his buddies and notices that they are all heading up a tree. When he asks what they are doing, he is absurdly surprised to hear about something called metamorphosis. Apparently, he is the only caterpillar that doesn’t know about this crazy stuff and he hurries to catch up to his friends. He does okay with the chrysalis-making. But, waiting to metamorphose is soooooo boring and takes sooooo long! He’s positive that he is done and emerges to discover that he is only half way there (ewww – not only does he look funny, he can’t fly at all!). So, he tries again and this time manages to stay in his chrysalis the required two weeks’ time. It is somewhat tortuous (as depicted in a hilarious two page spread), but he finally emerges as a fully developed butterfly vowing to be more patient. But, what is this? His friends are migrating? He joins the journey and says “Are we there yet?”.

Computer generated illustrations lend a comic touch to the story as we watch a young caterpillar dealing with the dreadfully slow process of metamorphosis. This engaging book with its quirky character will delight every budding entomologist as well as those that can sympathize with a small caterpillar’s impatience. Highly recommended!

Edison Beaker, Creature Seeker: the lost city

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Edison Beaker believes that he will never be a Creature Seeker (after book #1). But, Gigi (his great grandma) has other ideas. She tells Edison that he is ready to be a Creature Seeker and must find the Spark to light the city of Pharos. Otherwise, it will be forever sunk into gloom and the evil Baron Umbra and the Underlings will rule. Edison and his sister, Tesla, go to Gigi’s house to locate her book, which will explain everything. Thankfully, Gigi gave Tesla a monster detecting bracelet before they left, because Underlings come after them as they are looking for Gigi’s book. Their friend, Knox, from the Underwhere helps them escape the Underlings and they go through the Night Door to save Pharos.

Baron Umbra won’t let that happen easily and it takes the three intrepid heroes and a new friend, an Underling named Smudge, to return the light to Pharos and save the city. Along the way, they discover that true friendship, family and loyalty can go far in making the world better.

Colorful illustrations and a little bit of scariness make this a nice elementary level graphic novel. The classic good versus evil is woven nicely into the story. The main characters are loyal, brave and accepting of others (although Tesla was much quicker than Edison in that respect). In case you might want more – the last page has a huge hint that the story will continue…

Titanosaur: Discovering the World’s Largest Dinosaur

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Nothing gets a budding paleontologist more excited than a book about a newly discovered dinosaur. But, this book will turn many young readers into future paleontologists when they see the photos of the dig and the resulting life-size model.

Dr. Jose Carballido and Dr. Diego Pol followed the lead given by a local gaucho, who discovered the bone on his ranch in Patagonia while looking for sheep. When they arrived, they found a dinosaur femur (upper leg bone) that was nearly eight feet long, the largest on record! This amazing fossil was the first of over 180 bones that the paleontologists and their team uncovered and took back to the museum. Here, they cleaned them and made fiberglass replicas of every bone in order to build a model of this new species of Titanosaur.

The book is laid out in two corresponding parts. The main part details the discovery of the fossils and the painstaking work it took to remove them safely, clean them, study them and make the life-size replica. The corresponding part, which is in sidebars or the bottom of the pages, explains unfamiliar words and gives information about titanosaurs and the work of a paleontologist in this case.

Illustrations are well-done and the photographs interspersed throughout help the reader be part of the excavation. The two page spread showing the 122 foot long titanosaur, Patagotitan mayorum, is breathtaking and the final pages with a note and photos from Dr. Carballido and Dr. Pol is very engaging.

This book will be a great addition to a library collection, especially those looking to update their information. Put this book out and you won’t see it on the shelf. It’s that good!

Snail & Worm: All Day

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Snail and Worm star in three lovely stories in this sweet picture book for early readers. In Best Day Ever, Snail defines a “good day” very differently. His day didn’t go too well, but others had wonderful experiences and he was happy for them; hence, the best day ever! The Spooky Cave is a story about a dragon…er, turtle, that scares Snail enough to cause him to ‘run’ away even though Worm tries to tell Snail that the animal is really a turtle. And, the third story is A Bedtime Story that highlights the sweet relationship of these two friends. The pen and watercolor illustrations lend themselves to the simple story line quite well. Characters’ emotions are displayed and add to the humor of the book.

Give this book to readers who enjoy friendship stories like Elephant and Piggie or Frog and Toad. Snail & Worm have the same sweet, loyal friendship and will be a welcome addition to your collection.

I’m Trying to Love Math

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For those that dislike math (or those that like math and want to prove how cool it is!), one need look no further than I’m Trying to Love Math. The unseen narrator has some very valid reasons for disliking math and the cute purple alien is able to refute them all with the reality that math is useful, necessary and all around us! And, just when the narrator gets overwhelmed with the sheer volume of numbers (yep, math), the alien suggests that he give the book a shake to drop some of ’em out of the book.

Cartoon-like illustrations and some really cool math facts make this book thought-provoking and engaging. Young readers will enjoy the funny dialogue between the alien and the unseen narrator. And, they will keep reading to discover whether the narrator changes his mind. Along the way, they might find that math can be really interesting.

So, the next time you make cookies, play the guitar or travel to outer space, you’ll have to remember that it all takes math! Kinda cool, right?

The Two Mutch Sisters

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This pair of sisters have been together for a very long time. Even though their taste differs, they collect two of everything and their shared home become a tad too cluttered. Ruby decides to take her half of the collection and move into a different house. While their separate homes are no longer cluttered, Ruby and Violet feel that something is missing…each other. So, Violet takes matters into her own hands and moves their houses to a new double lot where they can be neighbors. And now, they have each other and nothing is missing!

This sweet story with its very different sisters and very interesting group of collectibles (glockenspiels and spittoons among them) is a sweet tribute to sibling love. The illustrations are detailed and fun, showing all sorts of clutter. Students will pick up this book again and again.

100 Most Dangerous Things on the Planet

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This fact-filled book describes the top dangerous things that can harm (or, more likely, kill) you. Each one is detailed on a single page with photos, risk and survival ratings, “What to do” section and text boxes with extra fun facts. The book is divided into two sections – natural dangers and human dangers. Natural dangers is then further divided by the type of danger (natural disasters, dangerous weather, lost in the wild and dangerous animals).

This book is attractively laid out and will, no doubt, be of great interest to its target audience. I am concerned that there is nothing noted about where the information comes from and how the risk and survival rates are determined. While it is packed with information about what to do in case one of these awful things occurs, it leaves out a pretty significant piece of information – where did they find out all this stuff? That being said, I don’t plan to go anywhere near a pyroclastic flow, which has a survival rating of 10%. I’ll take a dingo attack (95% survival rating) over that any day. Why take chances?