Charming illustration in the tradition of claymation accompany simple rhyming text of noun-verb phrases, mostly set in pairs of adult/young animals (e.g. “Chicken clucks, chick scratches. Duck quacks, duckling hatches.”) It’s cute, it’s sweet, and it’s got educational opportunities teaching rhyme, animals, and grammar.  It’s limited audience almost made me list it as “additional purchase,” but I think I’m going to go ahead and give it “Recommended.”

There’s probably a limited audience to whom this book will appeal.  It tells the story of a young girl moving to Israel with her parents.  She describes the new things she experiences and how she misses her grandmother, keeping in touch by phone, emails, and letters until her first visit.  Though there are certain themes in the book that would carry over to any child making a move to a new culture, it really is very specific to Israel, and would probably appeal mostly to children of Jewish heritage or those who have visited or are planning to visit Israel.

A cute book chronicling the first year of a baby’s life, from the baby’s perspective.  A good tool for teachers trying to teach young writers about the concept of voice, and a fun read for anyone who has a baby brother or sister (or other babies in their lives).

This is the story of a young bunny rabbit who finds a squirrel in the woods that he thinks is sleeping, but when he carries it home his parents inform him that it is dead, and they bury it.  I guess it’s fine, but I think there are better options out there if you need something in your collection explaining death.

Set in the South Africa of its authors, this picture book tells the story of a young (personified) cow who is looking for her soccer ball.  She keeps thinking she’s spotted it only to find she’s mistaken a rock or a fruit or the moon for her ball. In the end, a bird who has been following her throughout her search finally catches up with her and tells her that her ball has been in her backpack all along.  American students will question that the soccer ball and all the items mistaken for it are plain white instead of the black and white patterns they associate with soccer balls.  Many of the objects found in the search will be unfamiliar to American students and may require explanation.

Intended to be used as an instructional tool to teach alphabetic and phonemic skills, this is one book in a series of twenty-six, with each book focusing on a specific letter of the alphabet.  If this were a tool being used in the classrooms of your school, it might be nice to have a set in the library for students to explore on their own, but as a stand-alone story it doesn’t reach much beyond adequate, and I’m not sure the cost of investing in the entire set would really be worth the dough.

The subtitle of the book (“Nefarious Silliness”) is fitting.  This is just a fun, silly collection of poems with a Halloween theme.  The illustrations are fun and the poems have a good rhythm and rhyme that make them fun to read.  Some of the poems have a seem a little odd, but still fun. Kids will enjoy.

A small, attractive book, intended for young readers and language learners.  There are just a few sentences on each two-page spread, in large font, presented in both English and Spanish, accompanied by full-page photos or diagrams.  The information up-to-date, in line with our current understanding of space (Pluto is listed along with Ceres and Eris as dwarf planets, rather than with the other planets).  It is a useful tool for beginning readers as well as for introductory science, though the information provided is very basic.

This delightful collection of seven folktales come from diverse traditions including Indian, Chilean, Inuit, Seneca, Scottish, Russian, and West African.  The illustrations are charming, with enough similarities in artistic style to give the book a unified feel, but also some subtle differences that give each story a slightly different flavor, suggesting the culture from which the story comes.  My one criticism of the book, keeping it from achieving an R* rating is that the cover doesn’t seem to match the rest of the book:  the title, combined with the cover art seems to suggest spooky stories, but the “Mystery and Magic” of the title comes more from magic mice and birds and elves, rather than ghosts and goblins that some readers might expect when they pick up the book.

If I was in a bad mood this might even have gotten a “Not Recommended.”  I like the graphics of the format, and I’m choosing to let that influence my rating heavily.  It’s an attractive book, and the engaging graphics will certainly capture kids’ attention.  The problem is that the characters/plot are not particularly well-developed:  a bunch of monster kids play hide-and-seek and the invisible kid wins.  My worry is that when kids choose what looks like a good book, if they are the disappointed by it, it will feed the books-are-boring prejudice that we are always trying to fight.