It’s fine.  The illustrations are stronger than the story.  The story is about someone who doesn’t fit in with his peers (in this case, an owl who likes poetry — hence the title).  He goes off on his own to enjoy his poetry in secret, but when discovered and teased he runs away, where he finds an audience (of mice) who appreciate his efforts, learning that poetry should be shared, so he doesn’t flee the next time other owls show up, and the more the owls listen, they eventually come to discover they enjoy it too.  It’s fine.  It just seems pretty much like a theme that’s already been done, without anything special to make it stand out.  But the illustrations are cute, and it is a good theme, even if it has been done before.

Wow! Totally cool! I love this book! But then I was not surprised, when I noticed that it’s the same author who created “If the World Were a Village” which is another book that I think is absolutely fabulous.  This book is all about taking really big numbers and illustrating them on a scale that makes them understandable, and those numbers are specific to some big ideas that shape our world and our society (e.g. representing all the wealth in the world as a pile of one hundred coins and the entire population of the world as 100 people to see the distribution; putting 3.5 billion years of life on earth into an hour and listing out when different life forms appear, with modern humans not showing up until 59 mintues and 59.8 seconds have gone by).  It includes a wide range items to draw its comparisons, but they are all things kids can recognize and relate to.  The illustrations support the text and help illustrate the ideas beautifully.  I think every library should have it!

It’s fine for what it is:  an explanation for young children of how burps happen.  The text is limited, the explanation straight-forward, the full-page color photos and illustrations support the text. I just think these non-fiction books for the younger set tend to give too little information to support the cost of the book.

It’s okay, I guess, but I think a lot of kids would feel cheated by the ending:  the author may be trying to make a point, but the kids who can relate to the character’s struggles aren’t going to buy the believability of the ending.  The story opens with the announcement of the upcoming talent show, and goes through all of Penny’s attempts to try to find a talent she can showcase, and her discouragement.  In the end she goes on-stage to blow her kazoo with her dog, and she gets the award for the “Best Friend.”  School talent shows really do raise such anxieties with a lot of kids, but the reader who might be hoping for an idea to come from all Penny’s searching, are going to scoff that they don’t give out awards for such things (even if some of us think they ought to).

The illustrations are fun.  The general story line is good: about a block where the buildup of Christmas lights and holiday decorations keep growing over the years until it’s completely overwhelming, and in the end the lights go out completely, and they all get a chance to appreciate the beauty of the stars above.  But it’s got some issues:  I realize the ability of astronauts to see the Christmas lights from space, and the tripping of the switch spreading the black-out world-wide are exaggerations for effect, but it didn’t really seem necessary; there are these big bold letters declaring that this book comes with a free song, but when you go to the website to download the link, it’s not so much a song as a reading of the story (presumably by the author), with quiet guitar strumming in the background.  Though the online reader did a fine job of reading it smoothly, I found the flow of the text a bit disjointed, with an inconsistent rhyming pattern.

It tells a little-known bit of American history, the story of one baker’s contribution to the American Revolution.  The illustrations are cool, echoing the title by looking like it’s all made of gingerbread.  The things is, gingerbread has little to do with the story, other than stating up front that in his civilian life the baker was known for his gingerbread.  His contribution to the war effort was actually in baking regular bread.

The clean, stylized illustrations offer a good juxtaposition to the squeamish topic:  a mischievous boy who’s bored the businessman’s dinner party his father has insisted he attend decides to add one of his fishing worms to each of the salads, just so he can watch everyone’s reactions. Of course, after the fun of watching everyone else, his father scolds him for taking so long to eat his own salad, so he too is forced to face his own medicine.

A sweet story about Christmas without all the commercialism, and about everyone having something to contribute and about the joys of family time spent together.  When a family is noticing as they decorate their tree that the homemade ornaments are the best, they make a pact that that Christmas they will all make homemade gifts.  The youngest is left in a quandary trying to figure out what he can make.  He keeps brainstorming ideas, but he’s too little to be allowed in the kitchen to cook alone, and it’s the wrong time of year to plant a garden, and the snow bear he makes melts before the big day, and Christmas Eve finds him going to bed sad because he’ll have no gift to offer the next day, but Momma’s comforting words,”the best part of Christmas is spending time together,” finally inspires an idea.  He ends up gathering all the little scraps of paper on which he’d been brainstorming ideas into a decorated jar which he labels, “365 Days of Together To-Dos.”  I think it’s sweet, and it captures the message it’s trying to deliver, and it’s got lots of little details in the illustrations that tie things together into a clean ending.  And I think a lot of kids can relate to feeling like they can’t come up with an idea, plus the book offers so many kid-friendly ideas.

I like what I think it’s trying to be (a grand fanciful adventure set in days gone by), but I think it misses the mark.  The illustrations seem inconsistent in their quality, and rhythm of the poetry is inconsistent in its readability.  These tigers are friends of this rich Victorian dude, and they set off on an adventure, but storms at sea leave them stranded, but after facing a volcano and spending time with some gypsies, they run into their old friend and neighbor in a Paris train station, who welcomes them back into the fold and throws them a feast.  A lot of the whys are left unanswered, leaving the reader a bit in the dark as to the point.  I’m not sure there’s ever an actual climax to the story.  I can’t figure out why they bother republishing it.

The publisher is re-issuing several books originally published in the mid twentieth century.  On the one hand, there’s something sort of charming and sentimental about the vintage illustrations, and it would be nice to have the cleaned up copies, rather than the battered, faded copies that have been sitting on the library shelves for the last 60 years.  On the other hand, I don’t know if the kids will be as charmed as I am.  The story tells of a baby elephant who’s not paying attention when he’s supposed to be holding his mom’s tail in the circus parade, so he follows a farm wagon back to the barn instead.