With very simple text, and much repetition, this is a book intended for very young students, celebrating the power of imagination.  It consists of an argument between a duck and a cat, as the cat tries to convince the duck to act like a duck, even though the duck keeps insisting he’s a cat.  The argument wraps up when duck decides to be a parrot, explaining that the day before he was a squirrel and last week he was a rooster, and tomorrow he intends to be a cow. The cat gives up.

Recommended as a satisfying conclusion to a trilogy.  If you’re going to purchase this for your library, you’ll want to get the first two books, How to Catch a Bogle, and A Plague of Bogles, too.  Each book does provide enough context individually so that if a student picks them up out of order they will still make sense.  Set in the streets of England in the days before there were social services available to look after children on their own, these books tell the tales  of street kids who make their way in the world as assistants to a Bogle Hunter, working to clear the sewers and basements of London of the child-snatching bogles terrorizing the town.  It’s dangerous work, and the books are descriptive enough to offer a few goosebumps, but not overly done in the gruesome department.

A very readable, very informative biography of Benjamin Franklin, it includes discussion of his role as one of America’s Founding Fathers, but focuses on his role as scientist, in an era when the word scientist was not even yet in use.  It tells about his curiosity and inquisitiveness, about his lack of formal education, but his constant pursuit of understanding through reading and experimentation.  It shares how much of his experimentation stemmed from the desire to solve real-world problems, from the invention of a better stove to help folks stay warm, to the invention of bi-focal lenses so that he didn’t have to keep changing glasses.  It shares how his fame as a scientist opened doors to him in his role as ambassador.  It shares enough to give the reader a real sense of knowing him as a person, not just as a list of accomplishments.

A solid little early chapter book for beginning readers.  In four chapters, it tells the story of animal-loving Lulu trying to bring her less-than-enthusiastic grandmother around to her way of thinking, when a large, cantankerous cat is found left in a bag on Lulu’s front porch, while her parents are away.  The first time the cat runs away, grandma is thrilled, but after it find’s its way back into their lives through Lulu’s open bedroom window, when reeks all sorts of havoc, and still manages to leave even grandma sad when she disappears again.  When she’s found again, with a new batch of kittens, it’s reluctant grandma who agrees to take them in and find them homes.

Okay, so you don’t need me to tell you these books are recommended for school libraries.  Their legendary popularity speaks for itself.  However, let it be known that my recommendation has more to do with how popular I know them to be with kids than with my own opinion of the writing.  When it comes down to it, it’s the kids’ opinions that matter.  It took SSBRC to get me to finally read a complete one of these books, with the impetus that it would be good for me to educate myself as to what it is the kids are reading.  The character, and the situations he faces, are relateable, but the writing babbles on like a rambling string-of-consciousness.  Even reading silently, I felt out of breath, as if I’d spent two hours listening to a motor-mouth who doesn’t stop for breath, or require any response, but just shares non-stop every thought in his/her head, no matter what tangents they go down.

It’s a book about digging your way out of a bad mood.  Child-like art accompanies the tale of a girl’s giant bear helping her accomplish her to-do list, which includes such things as driving to the moon, polishing stars, and finding a baby unicorn.  If you do decide to purchase a copy for your library, I would recommend either finding a library-bound copy or settling for a paperback, since the publisher’s hardcover is sewn so loosely it’s going to fall apart quickly.

It definitely has the cuteness factor going for it:  full of fluffy baby animals with over-sized heads and big eyes.  It’s not really a book to be read to self — it’s really intended as a book for a parent to read to a small child:  it’s a litany of, “Next to you, the softest puppy in the world is only kind of cute,” and more of that ilk.  It would get a certain amount of traffic in a school library just because of the cuteness factor, but it seems more like a book you give as a gift at a baby shower.

I love this illustrator’s artwork.  There’s something charming and enchanting about it that draws  the reader in.  The story is somewhat Velveteen-Rabbit-esque, telling the tale of a boy whose family doesn’t believe his beloved stuffed lion is real, even though he’s sure he is.  When they’re out for a walk one day, the lion gets left behind.  The family searches high and low when they get home, but must postpone their search until the next day when it gets too late.  A wordless sequence in the middle shows the lion in the woods, found by some other animals who help him find his way home.  When morning dawns and the family’s search resumes, Leo is found in the bushes right outside the front door, much to the surprise of everyone who insists they’d looked in just that spot the night before.  I will confess there are some elements to the artwork that I don’t completely “get”: a coffee pot and cups in the bushes? and crowns floating over the heads of all the people, also floating over the heads of the animals at night but not during the day?  But I think that’s okay, in fact I think it makes the artwork more compelling to leave it open to discussion/interpretation/possibilities.

It’s obviously the sequel to The Boss Baby, which I’ve never read, but would like to get, base on the recommendation of this book.  The illustrations and text work together to tell the tale of the arrival of a new baby sister, from the perspective of the toddler big brother, who is used to being the boss, but is finding himself displaced, that is, until baby sister manages to wrap him around her little finger.  It’s fun, and a fresh twist on the new-baby-in-the-home theme.  For librarians who have parents who might object to such things, you should be aware that the illustrations include mom breast-feeding baby (or providing “organic catering service”), toddler stripping down and peeing in the flowers (backside view), and parents sipping martinis together when peace is restored to the household.

A cute reminder that art is in the eye of the beholder. When a hippo is impressed by a mouse’s painting of the sea, he asks to have his own portrait painted.  After posing very carefully, he is very impressed with the mouse-sized paper that gets painted solid gray because that’s all of him that would fit on the paper.  When they swap roles, and the hippo paints a portrait of the mouse, it turns out like a tiny dot in the middle of the paper, with which mouse is delighted.