The first problem with this book is the biased scope of its coverage:  the title declares it to be about “History’s Most Troubled Eras,” but the other than the opening page about the middle ages, and the final page which mentions world-wide poverty and terrorism creating dangers today, every other era selected is directly tied to U.S. history, and we haven’t existed for most of history.  Even if the retitled to be about America’s most troubled eras, the selection of material is arbitrary: no mention of either of the world wars; the pages describing the dangers of exploration and colonial times don’t even mention the small pox that decimated Native American populations.  Finally, the surface level of information is so vague as to be mis-informative generalizations: it describes the cold war era as 1947-1991, and then goes on to claim that during the cold war students had nuclear raid drills, illustrated by a black-and-white photo from the 1950s.  As someone who grew up in the 1970s & 80s, I can tell you we never once had a nuclear raid drill at school.

A very early chapter book, the first in a new series of twisted fairy tales, this falls into that category of kid humor that us grown-ups can’t appreciate, but they’ll probably love it.  The heroine of the story is named Princess Pink, but she’s ademently against both princesses and the color pink, the anti-girly-girl.  In search of a midnight snack she opens her refrigerator one night and falls through to a mysterious land where she meets Mother Moose and Moldylocks, with whom she visits the home of the three beards.  Instead of porridge, they sample chili in which a spider is taking a bath.  When discovered by the beards, Princess Pink makes her escape, but Moldlylocks is captured.  Guilt-ridden for leaving her new friend behind, Moldlylocks returns, disguised as the beards’ grand-pappy, and rescues Moldlylocks from being made into chili.  I’m not ready to give it a whole-hearted endorsement, but I’m ready to consider purchasing the first few books in the series and see how the kids take to them.

Fabulous book! So good, on so many levels!  First, of course, you’ve got a highly appealing topic (dolphins rank right up there with horses for animals girls instinctively want to read about), and the gorgeous color photos immediately bring out the “oooh!” factor that draws so many people to dolphin tourist sites.  The text flows and is highly readable, and packed with information, not only about the dolphins themselves, but about the scientists and their methods for studying them.  It explains how we know what we know and it recognizes that there’s a lot we don’t know.  I learned a lot, and it left me wanting to know more, not because it left things out, but because it reminded me that there are still mysteries to be discovered by human understanding.  Fabulous book!!

There are way too many really good books about Santa out there to waste time or money on one this poor.  It’s not constructed well:  the binding will never stand up to library usage, and the many items glued into the book to give it three-dimensional character are often misaligned, at times even covering up the words. It’s not written well:  intended to be written in Santa’s voice, it babbles along is a random string-of-consciousness that makes Santa seem annoyingly ADHD (and it’s not punctuated well).  And it’s not illustrated well:  it includes a variety of illustration styles that, instead of coming across as eclectic, just seem disjoined.

Who can resist chicken jokes?  This book includes not only riddles, and knock-knock jokes, but fun facts, limericks and tongue twisters as well.  Besides the fun that makes joke books a good draw for reluctant readers, they also represent a good tool, as “getting” the jokes requires fairly sophisticated understanding of language.  This title represents a good value on several levels:  quality binding, a wide selection of types of jokes, limericks, and tongue twisters, and a significant number.  Besides, some of them a really funny (admittedly, some are groaners).  Color pages would make it more visually appealing, and it would’ve been helpful if the tongue twisters were labeled as such, as some children will be perplexed by them (the limericks and fun facts are labeled, but the tongue twisters are set apart by text boxes only).

Fans of the other Alcatraz books will enjoy spending time with these characters again.  In this installment Moose’s dad has received a promotion, and rumors indicate the cons could be out to get him.  When Moose and his sister are left alone one evening and fire breaks out in their apartment, Moose is left struggling with the guilt that his negligence could have contributed, the worry that someone might have set it on purpose (and the puzzle of trying to figure out who), and the neighbors’ accusations against his sister.  The kids on the island band together to try to solve the mystery, and end up uncovering more than one island conspiracy.  The way things are tied up a little too neatly and too abruptly at the end, without enough clue-dropping along the way, keeps it from getting a higher rating.

The illustrations are really quite charming, and though I’m not really well-versed in Swahili folktales, this one does include some of the classic characteristics of folktales, including providing an explanation for natural phenomena (in this case, explaining why chickens scratch at the ground).  As a general story it’s got some points that would make me question the storyline — why didn’t chicken just use Eagle’s prize needle at Eagle’s house, so the whole mess could’ve been avoided in the first place — but if you’re wanting to expand your multi-cultural folk tales, this would probably fit the bill nicely.

It gets points for a good, sturdy binding, and for clear step-by-step directions with good photo support.  But it completely utterly misses the mark of what its title claims.  The crafts included are not particularly “earth-friendly,” given that most of the materials used in the crafts are plastic; and given that few of the materials used are likely to be found laying around the typical home, it’s hard to qualify them as “recycled stuff.”  I do like that the index categorizes the crafts according to difficulty level — that’s a tool helpful to young crafters.

Stemming from a legend that Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in G Minor, known as “The Cat’s Fugue,” was inspired by the sounds of the composer’s cat walking on his harpsichord, this story tells of a cat with a head full of music which she longs to play.  Only her owner’s strict rules that no one is to touch his harpsichord keeps the cat constrained, until one day, in pursuit of a mouse, the cat lands on the keyboard and gives herself up to temptation.  Scarlatti fears what will happen to his own reputation if people find out that even a cat is able to compose such amazing music, so he gives her away to someone who does not own a harpsichord.  If your population has a heavy interest in music, it might be worthwhile, but it doesn’t exactly count as a must-have.

It gets points for a sturdy binding and bright, full-page color photos that support the text, and including e-books as well as print books in both text and photos.  But it lost points for being about a rather boring topic that seems like a waste of money, since I think there are probably better ways to teach the parts of a book.  However, it still might have earned an “Additional Purchase” if it hadn’t also shown itself guilty of one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to books for young children:  over-simplification to the point of untruthfulness.  When describing the spine of a book, it declares, “Hidden stitches hold the pages together.”  Yet that’s not always the case; sometimes staples or glue hold the pages together.  It claims that all books have barcodes on the back and tables of contents in the front, and that facts fill up nonfiction books, yet not all books have barcodes or tables of content, and not all nonfiction is facts.  This book is full of misinformation.