Told in simple kid language for young children, and illustrated with cheerful images, this book provides a good basic overview of health and well-ness basics.  There’s a page for diet, one for exercise, one for safety, brushing teeth, keeping clean, sleep, etc.  Not in-depth enough to be considered comprehensive, but broad enough to be a beginning place for young children.

It’s hard to know who the target audience of this book really is: it tries to be a children’s picture book, but the text is far too long and rambling to really capture or hold the interest of most children; I think the audience who will really appreciate are the loved ones of special needs children who are looking for comfort.  It’s easy to see what it’s trying to do: to teach readers to see beyond their eyes when considering the lives of children with limitations.  It’s a worthy purpose, and it’s a valiant effort — I just wish they’d had better editors to help it achieve better success.

The illustrations are a stunning example of aboriginal artwork from Australia.  The simple, single lines of text at the bottom of the pages list different elements of the Australian landscape.  Though not detailed enough to really serve as an informative text, it would serve well as an introduction to a unit on Australia, or as a tool for children to compare Australia to their own homes.

Carly and Sara meet up at camp and become fast friends.  When Carly laughs upon learning Carly’s last name, Carly’s feelings are hurt and she dashes off, avoiding Sara and refusing to listen when Sara tries to make amends.  Their budding friendship seems doomed until Sara finds an opportunity share her own last name, so that Carly understands this is another bond they share — she never meant to laugh at Carly, but with her. A good book for starting discussions about teasing and misunderstandings.

A rather sweet story of kissing tag, with lots of repetitive text as a lamb and mouse chase a pig around a garden while the pig shouts, “No more kisses!” After much chasing around the pig turns on the other two and attacks them with kisses until they are giggling for him to stop.

When Baby Hippo can’t sleep he wanders through his African neighborhood, listening to all the other baby animals being put to sleep.  Simple, repetitive text is good for emergent readers, and the bright illustrations will introduce them to a variety of animals.

The topic is one that will be popular, the color photos will appeal, and it’s got a sturdy binding.  It’s even got a lot of good information, including the history of Cheerleading camps, messages about teamwork and spirit, and what kinds of things typically happen at Cheer camps.  I have one big complaint about it, though, that keeps me from actually recommending it: it speaks to the reader under the presumption that said reader actually belongs to a squad and will actually be attending one of these camps.  There are an awful lot of girls who are interested in cheerleading, but will never have the opportunity to attend a camp or be part of a squad.  I wish it hadn’t been written in such a way to exclude them.

Another first-day-of-kindergarten story, but it’s a cute one.  At first everything seems to be going wrong for Polka-dot, as she keeps accidentally breaking Kindergarten rules, and she manages to get off on the wrong foot with one of her new classmates, who looks like she’s shaping up to be a first-class meanie.  By the end of the day Polka-dot seems ready to declare Kindergarten a complete disaster, until Liz (aforesaid meanie) faces a crisis and Polka-dot is able to come to her rescue.  Before long the two are fast friends and Polka-dot is feeling like she can tackle school after all.

This book is really cool.  I would give it an R* if it didn’t have such a limited audience for the text.  The illustrations include a single black line that traces through the entire book, connecting words and pictures in one long continuous thread.  The rest of the artwork that surrounds this single black line is very bold and graphic, and invites the reader to study the pictures.  The text walks the readers through different parts of a school, developing school-readiness skills by asking them to count and look for clues and identify animals and colors, etc.  Many folks will be intrigued by the illustrations, but children over a certain age will find the text babyish.

A great book for helping children develop an understanding of the fine line sometimes necessary to balance honesty and tact.  When Kim has a lesson on honesty at school, she declares a policy of always being honest, but she takes it too far, thinking it’s no longer okay to pretend to be a princess, but that it is okay to say everything she thinks, even when it’s hurtful to others.  Of course this causes problems with friends.  In the end, she discovers the trick of finding something to say that is both truthful and kind.