I’m picky about early readers, and I like this one. The sentences are simple without being stilted. There’s enough repetitiveness to the text to support emergent readers. But there’s still an amusing story to it. The entertaining illustrations and familiar characters (Farmer Brown and his crew) and familiar situation (staying cool in a pool on a hot day) will all help draw kids in and give them reasons to connect with the story.

It gets points for repetitive, predictable text patterns and for rhyming and for attractive illustrations that support the text while presenting students with examples of a wide variety of birds in different settings. It also gets points for providing extra information in the back for those who are curious. My complaint with the book is that it fails to use complete sentence structure. The repetitive pattern used consists of “Bird (preposition) a (noun), (verb).” I would have been so much happier with it if it had included, “There is a…” at the beginning of each, or even if each had started with “A” and the comma had been replaced with “is.” Providing young students with many examples of good grammar is part of language learning. This one sets an example of sentence fragments, which has a place in poetry, but I didn’t find especially suitable to this format.

Because it is an early reader (Ready-to-Read level 1), the information is pretty basic, but it’s not a bad choice for what it is, though it can’t exactly be called substantial. With one to three sentences per page, it simply but accurately describes how the earth formed, how volcanoes form, and how they continue to shape/change the earth’s landscape. Clear, simple drawing help enhance the text to convey meaning.

For an early reader (Ready-to-Read level two) it packs in a solid amount of information. It’s written in a tone that expresses enthusiasm for the topic. It’s illustrated with a combination of color photos and cartoonish drawings and charts. The graphics add to the appeal without distracting from the text. It’s a solid choice to pique the curiosity of young readers.

I’m sorry, but the story is boring and the sentences are stilted. It tells about some classmates who are competing in a relay race. It tells us they struggle when they practice and that they win in the end, but there’s nothing that makes the reader care one way or the other.

I can’t declare it to be a terribly original story. It pretty much mirrored one of the other books in my pile that I read a few minutes later. The twist in this one is that the all the kids in the story have pet monsters instead of ordinary pets. As Pet Monster Show-and-Tell day approaches, our main character is terribly worried that she is unable to teacher her beloved monster any tricks to show off. Her anxiety builds when the other students’ pets exhibit a wide range of talents, and she doesn’t know what to say about her own friend. Seeing her distress, Hugsby offers a hug right when she needs it, which she declares is his special gift before he offers hugs to the whole class. The saving grace of this one is the way kids will be able to extrapolate to the feelings so many of us have at times, thinking we don’t have any special talents that compare to those around us, and the way it reminds us to appreciate the simple talents like giving good hugs.

I kind of had to chuckle as I read this book in August, when my “teacher dreams” are starting to kick into gear. The babysitting scenario that got out of hand seemed to reflect the themes of most teachers’ dreams this time of year. When Henry’s friend stops by and asks if he can watch her sleeping nephew for a bit, she insists it will be no problem, as the baby is sleeping. But word spreads around the neighborhood and pretty soon watching a kitten, an infant, a baby, and a puppy. One thing leads to another until complete chaos is reigning, beyond Henry’s control and his house gets trashed. But eventually they all wear themselves out and are asleep when their parents return to collect them. The last one to leave, who was the friend who had started it all says, “You see, Henry? Babysitting is easy.”

I really wanted to like this one more than I actually did. The illustrations are fabulous! They’re warm and friendly and inviting. But it’s one of those poetical sort of books that depends on a series of short rhyming phrases to tell its story, but I didn’t think the words really did their job as well as they should have. Some of the vocabulary is likely to be unfamiliar to young children, and I don’t object to exposing kids to rich vocabulary, but sometimes the words chosen seem to be better at meeting the needs of rhythm and rhyme than actually conveying meaning. It maybe almost would work better as a wordless book.

Okay, so I couldn’t quite bring myself to give it an official recommendation, because it’s not like it has anything especially literary to make it stand out. It’s your basic story of girls who get the wishes for pets granted, and then the main character worries that her pet isn’t special enough to win a prize at pet day, but then he surprises her and she decides she loves him no matter what. The story line itself practically mirrors another story I read a few minutes before this one. That being said, this book does have really appealing illustrations featuring lots of big-eyed fairies waving magic wands and flowers and sparkles and PINK, so it will certainly be a popular choice with its target audience.

It’s a fun introduction to the genre of detective novel. Strange noises in the night keep awakening the barnyard animals, but each evening when Sherlock Chick and the other animals arrive at the location of the noises, only a few clues are found, and no culprit. The cat keeps offering suggestions of what it could have been (ghost, goblin, monster…) and suggesting they all talk it through together, but everyone is too tired to stay up and address the issue, and each night they continue to be awakened. Finally, Sherlock Chick decides to investigate in the light of day when he can see things more clearly, and the culprit becomes obvious.