Organized in chronological order, this is a brief introduction to 13 famous people in American history, and famous quotations uttered by each along the theme of courage.  Each beautifully illustrated two-page spread is dedicated to a different individual, beginning with their name, one of their famous quotes, and the date it was given; then it gives one paragraph of introduction giving the context for when and where the quotation comes from.  Two more pages in the back give extra blurbs on all the individuals, providing further background.  It’s a good introduction to spur student interest, but there’s not enough meat to make it an R*. One question left unanswered in both information paragraphs is why Rosa Parks’s quote came from 1990.

It’s lame.  It claims to be a book about courage, but the big brave thing that Ben manages to do is to ride his bike to his friend’s house by himself, exactly 6 houses from his own, while Mom is standing there watching.  It just doesn’t qualify as an actual story, because there’s no actual plot. But the binding is sturdy and the illustrations are cute.

The limited target audience makes this an Additional Purchase for school libraries, though it may count more as a Recommended for public libraries.  Intended for very young children, both illustrations and text are simple and spare, but the character and plot are certainly something preschool children will relate to:  every time Mommy suggests helping Mimi in some way, Mimi shouts no and insists on doing it herself (I’m guessing she’s two).

It’s crude and crass and tacky.  It started out as a bedtime story a dad told his that made them laugh, and I can see that — there are certainly some who will get a kick out of this kind of humor, but I certainly wouldn’t spend money on it.  They told us in library school that if we don’t have any books in our library that offend us then we are guilty of unconscious censorship, so I’ll keep this in my library to keep me from censorship, but I’m glad it was free and I wouldn’t recommend it to others.  It tells the story of an overweight woman who has a bad case of gas but hasn’t farted in years, and when she finally passes gas in the produce section of the local market all the produce changes colors, resulting in a new trend.

Set in Elizabethan England, this is the tale of girl who is shuffled between disinterested parents, and left to look after herself much of the time.  To make things extra challenging, Meggy has a disability during an historical time period in which such struggles were viewed as just punishment from God sent down upon someone who had it coming.  But Meggy’s got spunk and she faces things head on, making friends along the way, and coming to the rescue when she discovers her drip of a dad is about to be unwittingly used by some thugs to play the key role in a dastardly deed.  There’s a lot about Meggy that kids today can relate to, but there’s a lot about the setting that students will find so very different from their own world, that many may have trouble understanding.  Best suited for more sophisticated readers who have some background knowledge of this time period or used as a read-aloud or literature-circle shared reading experience with an adult who can explain/interpret as questions arise.

It’s an adequate, though limited biography of President Obama, designed for early readers, presented in both English and Spanish, illustrated with photos from the president’s life.  Along the bottom of each page, a timeline grows throughout the book, with new dates/events added to accompany the text.  But as a teaching tool, the timeline failed to represent the passage of time with distance along the line:  all dates were evenly spaced regardless of whether they represented a 4-year or a 7-year gap, and some important events described in the text were left off of the timeline, leaving me as a reader wondering why.

Each two-page spread consists of one full-page color photo of a real kid, accompanied by 2-3 simple sentences (in both English and Spanish), describing some of the behaviors and challenges that autistic children experience.  It is careful to use words like “some” and “may” so as to avoid generalizations lumping all autistic children together.  A useful tool for teaching students about children they may encounter around them but not understand.

A good tool for supporting early childhood social studies curriculum teaching about community workers, the simple text in this book, supported by simple illustrations, clearly describes many facets of the job of garbage collectors. These are members of the community that young children will be aware of, but likely know little about.  I even learned something.

Friendships between two friends are always easier than when a third friend comes along.  Learning to navigate the politics and power-plays that arise in such situations is one of the essential lessons of childhood.  All students will recognize the simple dilemma in this story of two friends playing, and the tensions that arise when a third joins but tries to push one aside.  The illustrations are cute.  The text is spare and simple and direct. The situation is common.

Bright, bold, graphic illustrations accompany very simple rhyming text walking readers through the noises one might encounter on a typical day in the city, from alarm clock ringing, through trash cans knocking, and on through the day until street lights are blinking and children are dreaming.  Useful for teaching about rhymes, nouns, verbs, and observing sounds.