There seems to be quite the trend these days to capitalize on children’s fascinations with the gross and disgusting.  Many of the books I’ve read in this line have either failed to live up to being as icky as it proclaimed, or else hyped the ew without delivering any real information.  This one really was delivering honest-to-goodness scientific information, and it really was icky enough to make me squirm.  Illustrated with a combination of photos and cartoons.

The problem with trying to write a book about the unexplained is that when you’re writing about something about not much is known, you don’t have much to say.  So what’s the point?

This book packs in a lot of information, and does so in a well-organized manner.  The font and the layout and the plenitude of color photos keep the information from becoming overwhelming for young scholars.  The words from the glossary are highlighted in bold, and “words to know” sections along the way provide the definitions without requiring students to turn to the back of the book.

A topic of high-interest to many, this book draws on a wide variety of sports to complete its alphabet.  Some of the words selected are specific to one sport or another; others are general terms that apply to many sports.  Each page is dominated by a large full-color photo supporting the brief text explaining the given word.  A good tool for early readers with an interest in sports, though not heavy on information.

There’s always time for one of these brief folk tales.  Each of the ten stories begins by telling the tradition from which it comes.  It is then re-told in an engaging yet compact manner.  Besides the time benefits of these short re-tellings, the spare nature in which they are told leave room for inference as to the morals of the stories, thereby providing a springboard for discussion about the stories.

It’s trying to use the graphic novel format to make math cool, but the characters are flat, the math is forced, and the plot is trite, so even though it’s a graphic novel, it’s still a dud.

It’s got a sturdy binding and it’s colorful, with all the cool graphics to make it appealing and all the appropriate non-fiction text features to make it a good educational tool.  It’s even got good ideas.  My only concern is that it is perhaps overly optimistic/rosy in creating an image for kids about the grand success they can expect, when the reality might not turn out as picture-perfect as what the book sets forth.

It covers a topic that will be of interest to many students, and it uses all the appropriate non-fiction text features to serve as a useful introduction to reading for information, but the information itself is somewhat vague and limited due to the breadth of the topic: because it is lumping together all stadiums for all sports in one brief volume, there are a lot of generalizations.

This book does a good job of taking an innately interesting topic, about which many stories and myths have been developed, and sifts fact from fiction.  Information is presented in a consistent format:  briefly stating a commonly held perception about pirates, and then examining the historical accuracy of that perception.

A complex topic presented in a clear and concise manner appropriate to its target audience.  Electricity is something students use everyday, but about which they may have little understanding. I even learned a few things.  The font and words per page are not intimidating to students, but a lot of information is still packed in, well-supported by color photos and labeled diagrams.