Each page is dedicated to a different animal, with one of Jenkins’ cool collage illustrations and a few simply lines of text describing how that animal sleeps, on a clean white background that makes both art and info pop.  Sleeping is something we all do, and something we have in common with all living creatures, but how some of these animals sleep range from the mildly interesting to the fascinating.  More information about each animal is offered in the back of the book for readers who want to know more.

I love this book! Highly recommended for all ages! Organized around different chunks of time (one second, one minute, one hour, one day, one week, etc. etc.) Steve Jenkins presents a collection of not-quite-random facts about plants, animals, and humans, describing things that occur within that chunk of time.  For younger students, it gives some perspective to help understand our concepts of time; for older students and adults, it gives some perspective to help understand issues of population expansion and nature preservation.  It’s just fascinating all around, and of course, illustrated in Jenkins’ typically delightful style.

I do appreciate the works of Paul Galdone.  I think he does an excellent job of staying true to the folk tale genre in his retellings, using much of the repetition that was part of the oral tradition from which they sprang, and his illustrations give personality to the bears and to Goldilocks.  I’m just not sure Houghton Mifflin did them justice in this particular republication.  There’s a uniformity to the series that is sweet, and would make them look nice on a shelf all lined up together, but as individual books, the new format detracts from the originals.  And they don’t seem especially sturdy for library use. I’d really recommend searching out these stories, by this author, in other editions if you can find them.

This is essentially a republication of an oldy but a goody, with a slightly different format.  The re-telling of the classic folk tale is well-done, and the illustrations are inviting (okay, maybe that’s just because this is the version I fondly remember from my own childhood), so if you don’t already have the older one, this would be worth getting, but I can’t say the new format enhances the story at all.  In fact, I would probably say this smaller version cuts down the illustrations too much.  If you have or can find the older, larger edition, I’d stick with that.

There’s not enough meat here to really make it a recommend, but what’s here is worthwhile.  Each two page spread consists of one full-page color photo opposite a single random fact about the human body, with a few sentences in large font to explain it.  Some of the facts are more “weird” than others, but there’s enough to trigger a response from kids (maybe disgust, maybe fascination, maybe humor).  It’s really intended for early audiences — I might be stretching it to include grade three — older readers may be interested, but not satisfied, with what they learn.

I really wrestled with what kind of a rating to give this book.  I guess I’m settling on a somewhat grudging recommended.  I love the illustrations: I think they’re beautiful, and they do an excellent job of providing modern day students with a glimpse of what school and childhood looked like in Colonial America. I like the rhyme and rhythm of the text, too, with just a few lines of verse on each page.  I just wish the there was a little more mortar filling in the connection between the verses and the illustrations — I think the book will have a hard time standing on its own with young readers who will need some sort of outside source (a knowledgable adult handy, or some previous study) to explain some of the references/vocabulary.  As a read-aloud, it could make a good introduction or addition to a unit on Colonial American history, as long as it is supported in some way, with discussion to set the stage for the time period.

This is a sweet story. Poindexter is a bashful young pig who has a hard time making friends because he is so shy, but he seeks refuge at the local library, where he becomes a bit of a library helper.  One day a young turtle shows up at the library who is even more shy than Poindexter, seeking a book on how to make friends.  As Poindexter helps the newcomer, they bond over the book and pull each other out of their respective shells (literally, in the turtle’s case).

I’m sorry, I feel like I’m being mean, but … really? It’s not that there’s anything hurtful or harmful or inherently bad about this book, it just doesn’t seem like there’s enough to it to have warranted someone taking the time to write it, and someone else taking the time to illustrate it, and someone else taking the bother and expense to publish it, let alone a reason for someone to spend good money to buy it and shelf space to store it and take the time to read it.  Okay, it rhymes, and the illustrations are kinda cute. but it’s just not a whole book worth.  Maybe if it had been published on a single page, in a collection of summertime poems, but as a whole book it just doesn’t seem worth the paper it’s printed on.

The best recommendation for this book is the fact that both my third-grade and fifth-grade nieces asked if they could read it before me, and it got their seal of approval.  The second book in a series, there was enough background trickled in to fill me in, even though I hadn’t read the first book.  It tells the story of a young girl living in a large mystery-and-magic-filled house, along with her distracted parents and three magical cats who once belonged to the previous owners of the house.  Olive is on a mission to find the spell book of the house’s previous residence, but the cats are doing all they can to interfere.  Though she insists (to herself as well as others) that she’s got the best of intentions, the books seems to work its own magic on Olive, leading her away from her original goals, with the potential for disaster hanging in the balance.  Joining Olive in her quest is a friend she met in her first book, and a new friend who has just moved into the neighborhood.  As one would expect with a good kids’ book, in the end Olive comes to her senses, averting disaster, and learning something about herself, and about what it means to be a good friend.

There’s a reason Nancy Drew books have been around for over eighty years and continue to attract a loyal following.  It was fun to have an excuse to go back and re-read one of the books that first hooked me into voluntary recreational reading.  This anniversary limited edition is kinda cute with a retro cover that may be appreciated by Nancy’s fans, but there’s not much pizzaz to the cover to attract new readers, so all-in-all, though I think every school library should offer the series, I don’t think this particular edition is the best option.