Apparently this book is an adaptation of a musical stage production which in turn is an adaptation of the classic ballet.  The CD included begins by reading the book aloud, and also includes songs from the musical.  I don’t know that I’m much of a fan of the music (though maybe it would be better in context), but I quite enjoyed all aspects of the book: story, illustrations, and audio, too.  One probably has to be familiar with the original story to appreciate this modern twist with a male protagonist and a female nutcracker.  It opens when Fritz gets in trouble and has his Mouse Hunter video game taken away, and sentenced to stay at home being baby-sat by the neighbor, Mr. Drosselmeier, while the rest of his family go out to see the Nutcracker ballet.  After sneaking into the closet where his video game has been stashed, Fritz plays so much he finds himself taking on the Mouse King himself.  When the Nutcracker comes to his aid, together they pursue the Mouse King to Toy Town to keep him from ruining Christmas, and after many adventures mirroring those of the original ballet, Fritz finds himself waking from his dream at home, as everyone troops in for their Christmas festivities.

The only thing I like about this book is the reinforced library binding.  The craft projects seem a bit lame, their connections to the states a bit tenuous, and the information about the states a bit redundant and dull.  Sorry, but that’s kinda all I have to say.

Is it still called a graphic novel if it’s only as long as a picture book?  This mystery is set in Mr. Venezi’s pet shop, where all the cages are mislabeled, except that of the guinea pig.  When the crash of the door one evening knocks the G off the end of the guinea pig’s sign, the new hamster on the block mistakenly thinks he’s a P.I.  Sasspants is really only interested in returning peacefully to his cage full of books, but the young hamster won’t stop pestering him until he fulfills his duty as local P.I. and solves the mystery of who has been eating the pet store owner’s sandwich each day.  The pestering hamster becomes the begrudging P.I.’s sidekick as they interview witnesses, test hypothesis, and set a trap to catch the culprit.  It’s a cute introduction to both the graphic novel format and the mystery genre for young readers.  It’s got a good, sturdy binding, and it finishes off with a couple pages in the back to offer a brief,kid-friendly, non-fiction explanation about the animals featured in the story.  It’s the first in what I presume will be a series for the Pet Shop Private Eye.  For now I’m calling it an additional purchase, but I reserve the right to come back and edit my review (possibly bumping it up to recommended) after I see how it goes over with the kids.

Inspired by the work of M. C. Escher, this is a marvelous alignment of text and illustration that takes the reader into an off-kilter world, where the story reads through front to back, but isn’t completed until, upon reaching the end of the book, the readers turns the book upside-down and continues back to the front again, with the illustrations an equal combination of sense and non-sensical, regardless of whether you are looking at them right side up or upside down.  Thanks to a bit of syntactical engineering, each page can also be read circularly.  It’s a celebration of imagination.

This non-fiction text describes  a dozen very different school experiences from a dozen different countries scattered around the world.  It begins with a world map labeling the twelve countries to be described within.  Each two-page spread within the body of the book is dedicated to a different country: it includes some basic geographical information about the country, photos, and a description of the personal schooling experience of a specific child from that country.  Within the description, within the context of describing the school, a lot of additional information about the culture of that country is also included.  I really appreciate the variety of settings included: right after reading about a school under a tree in Kenya, with few books, where a school field trip was the first time students had ever been beyond their village, the reader turns the page to learn about an international in Malaysia with over 16,000 books in their library, where a school field trip took students to the Netherlands.  It’s a wonderful opportunity to use the common experience of school to link students to children all around the world.  I just wish they could have managed to include more photos to visually support the textual descriptions of things that will be so foreign to most young readers.

The topic will be a popular one.  The illustrations are inviting.  The ABC format makes it easily accessible, and it’s packed with information.  The rhyming seems a bit contrived at times, and some of the key alphabet words seem a bit of a stretch in terms of relevance to Roman history, but I think its strengths outweigh its weaknesses.  A map in the front illustrates the extent of the Roman Empire at its peak.

A gentle, soft, touching tale about letting go of a loved one.  Old Pig and Granddaughter have lived together for a long time, comfortable in the routines in which they help each other, but one day the routine is thrown off when Old Pig finds herself too tired to get up as usual for breakfast.  When she does finally feel well enough to get up, she’s still tired, but feels the need to make some preparations, including taking a long walk with Granddaughter celebrating the simple delights of life.  Granddaughter cares for Old Pig right up until”for the very last time Old Pig and Granddaughter held each other tight until morning.”  The soft illustrations beautifully capture and help to set the gentle mood of the story.  A wonderfully comforting book to share with someone facing their own loss.

I think whether this book would qualify as recommended or additional purpose will depend on the purpose you are seeking to fill.  It’s got a lot of information presented in a very readable fashion, rather like a travel diary.  The information isn’t organized terribly well for research purposes, so if it’s strictly an information book you’re looking for, it would probably be an additional purchase.  But if you’d like to use the sports connection to spark some reader’s interest in geography and travel, then I could recommend this (and probably the rest of the series).  The one thing I wished for that could have made this an R* would be to have more photos to help support the text.  One feature I really did like (besides the voice that made it so inviting) was that it included excerpts from the glossary in little blurbs along the way, right on the pages where the words would be needed.  Let’s face it, kids tend to be pretty lazy about actually using the glossaries in the back, but putting the “Words 2 Know” blurbs right on the applicable page would be helpful.

A book designed to teach children about business basics, this is the story of a young girl who wants a doll she sees on sale and must find a way to earn the money to pay for it.  After determining what marketable skills she has, she must find a way to cover start-up costs, so she goes to her friends and offers to let them in on the ground-floor:  they each invest a dollar in the hopes of sharing in the profits.  At the end of the story all the math works out nice-and-tidy, even allowing for sales tax.  In the back of the book, a two-page author’s note connects the dots for kids, explaining plainly the parallels between the story and the way the stock market works.

This nearly wordless book, illustrated all in black, white, and red, uses graphic-novel panels to tell the story of the day Bruno the Burglar tunneled his way out of the Big House and led the guards a merry chase through town all in his quest to take advantage of free sundaes being offered on Valentine’s Day.  It’s sometimes a bit difficult to discern the actual plot line, and when I did, I didn’t care much about it.