Eh.  It’s got a strong binding and all the necessary non-fiction features to serve as teaching tool, but it is boring and preachy, and is not likely to have much of an audience for general recreational reading. There are other tools that teach non-fiction reading and friendship better.

This wordless book tells of a girl getting on on a subway train with her parents.  While all the other adults are occupied (reading, sleeping, etc.) the girl watches out the window, noticing when they come out of  a tunnel into a sunlit hillside with lots of little people flagging down the train.  She follows, serving to rescue one of the little people and his plane which had been caught in a tree.  They follow her home and offer in thanks a small plant which grows into a large tree in her urban neighborhood.  The book’s bright, graphic illustrations invite the reader into studying the plot they portray.  It can be a useful tool for oral language development with young readers and a writing prompt for older students.

Fabulous full-page color photos support a couple of simple sentences of text (in both English & Spanish) on the opposite page.  This is a popular topic that holds automatic appeal for young readers, and the information included is both interesting and accessible to beginning readers and language learners.  As with all the books in this series, it’s got a strong and shiny binding that adds to its appeal.

In rhyming text a whole assortment of baby animals ask their mamas whether they’ll still love them and do all the same things when new babies come, and each mama replies, “of course,” calming fears and giving assurances.  It definitely has a very specific target audience and purpose (kids with pregnant moms who need reassuring), and it does a sweet job of fulfilling that purpose if you don’t already have something to fill that niche, but it doesn’t have wide reading appeal.

A sentimental, sweet, and touching story told from the perspective of a small teddy bear who shows patience and perseverance through much rough play in order to win a place in the heart of his young boy.  He wins the boy’s heart and stays with him until the boy is grown, at which point the once-boy shares his beloved bear with another child in his role on a rescue squad.

Cute water-color illustrations help tell this rhyming story of a four-year-old who becomes friends with all the animals in the zoo.  Disturbed by their confinement behind bars, she decides to set them all free one night and invite them to live at her house.  Of course this arrangement creates problems too, but her bold initiative spurs the zookeeper into upgrading their home.  One problem for American readers:  because it was originally published in Great Britain, the rhyme is thrown off a bit for our pronunciation at times (door-saw?).

This book is full of heart.  I don’t know much about the history of baseball (in fact, I had never heard of Honus Wagner, this turn-of-the-twentieth-century ball player who was one of the first players inducted into the Hall of Fame).  But now I’m a fan.  His story from poor, homely, son-of-immigrants coal miner to well-loved baseball star seems like the epitome of the American dream.  Illustrations capture the era and the mood of the story beautifully.

I love this book! I promptly bought it for my first-grade niece for Christmas and recommended it to several friends.  The illustrations are fun, and the rhyming, rhythmical text carries a great message:  it celebrates all the things a girl can do, even while delighting in wearing a sparkly crown, including getting dirty, playing sports, and using power tools.  It simply broadens the view of what it can mean to be a princess.

Designed for beginning readers and language learners, this bilingual books shares very basic information about ballet.  A few simple sentences on each page are accompanied by full-page color photos supporting the text with images of diverse dancers.  It includes all the appropriate non-fiction text features for teaching purposes, it is a high-interest topic attractive enough to appeal to recreational readers, and it has enough structure to make the information accessible to emergent readers and language learners.

This sweet story begins when Santa returns from making his annual deliveries with one little kitten left over.  Like a child asking his mom, Santa asks Mrs. Clause, “Can we keep him?”  Unfortunately Mrs. Clause is left to be the voice of reason, reminding Santa of his allergies.  When Santa goes to review his letters, the romping kitten discovers one last lost letter under the desk.  In a neat and tidy Christmas ending, the problem of finding the kitten a home and the problem of finding a last-minute gift for the child who sent the letter are mutually resolved to the delight of both kitten and child.  Admittedly schmaltzy, sappy, and sentimental, it might have only ranked as an additional purchase, except sap and schmaltz is just what the Christmas season calls for, and besides, the illustrations do such a wonderful job of capturing the expressions of the characters, that it gets the final nudge into “Recommended.”