Even though it’s only got a couple sentences of simple text per page, accompanied by full-color photographs that support that text, this little book does a surprisingly good job of concisely explaining, in step-by-step fashion, how big sturdy trees get turned into thin, flimsy paper.  It’s got all your basic non-fiction text features, it’s designed to be held by small hands, and it’s got a sturdy binding, too.

Though it may not be a hot topic for kids to pick up for casual reading, as a tool to support the curriculum, this book is packed with solid information.  The layout is attractively designed, with plenty of photos and diagrams to support the text, and the text itself is broken up enough into manageable blurbs to keep it from being intimidating.  The concepts contained in this book (different types of energy, different modes of transferring energy, different sources of energy) are ones that I remember being quite confused about clear until I got to college, this book is quite clearly written, giving concrete examples.

I’m not exactly sure what the purpose of this book is.  If it is trying to be informative about life in a circus, the depth of knowledge it offers is really quite shallow.  If it is trying to illustrate how to write a diary (which is kind of suggestion by the two-page spread in the back offering tips on “Writing a Diary”), then it’s modeling bad writing: this is reported to be the diary of a grown man, but he’s writing in very short, choppy sentences, showing no evidence of personal voice or fluency.  Also, even though this is supposedly a diary, written in first person, the photos used to illustrate the book keep showing a different guy.

The illustrations certainly are striking (if sometimes a bit puzzling, as to their links to the stories).  If you’ve got a large folktale collection and want a variety of editions for comparison’s sake, this one could be a nice addition.  If however you are limited in how many fable volumes you can have, I think I would recommend looking elsewhere.  This volume does contain some of the classics, such as The Tortoise and Hare and The Lion and the Mouse, but several of the selections are a bit obscure.  One of the defining characteristics of a fable is that they typically include a moral or a lesson they are trying to impart, but several of these left me wondering just what the point was supposed to be.

Dinosaurs are always a hit, and the illustrations in this one are certainly eye-catching, but what makes this one a real gem is that it tells the story of how those illustrations came to be — how our knowledge of dinosaurs has grown over time as new evidence is discovered, and how scientific illustrators piece together available evidence, and extrapolate from it to create the images we see of these long-ago creatures which no one ever has actually seen.  I think it’s important for students to learn that scientific understanding (heck, most understanding for that matter) is not static, but is based in evidence, and changes as new evidence comes to light.

A beautifully-illustrated non-fiction book!  It is packed with information, describing in detail different kinds of volcanic eruptions: creative and destructive.  The layout makes it suitable for a wide range of students, because it allows for a more surface introduction of the material if one reads only the larger print, but most pages also offer  smaller-print paragraphs providing more in-depth information for older or more interested readers.  I learned a few new things myself.

On the one hand, the whole gross gimmick has been so trendy lately that it’s getting a bit old, but on the other hand, it does hold a certain appeal to its target audience, and it’s certainly applicable as a window to look at history.  I like the way this book focuses on the everyday experiences of people long ago, serving to paint a picture of the times which students need to develop if they are going to have the necessary context for reading/pondering history or historical fiction.  It’s interesting enough that I don’t want to give it a Not Recommended rating, but I don’t feel like I can quite recommend it, on account of some doubtful bits of information:  I find it hard to accept without question its assertion that “There are no such insects on the other side of the Atlantic” when referring to mosquitoes, given that malaria in Europe is documented back to at least the middle ages; though corsets may have been worn by both sexes, and primarily for purposes of encouraging good posture, as this book declares, you can’t tell me that some of those women weren’t also concerned with keeping their jiggly parts from jiggling; and if the whole focus of your book is the ick factor, and you’ve got pages dedicated to dealing with bodily wastes, without a single mention of women’s menstrual hygiene issues, you’re being omitting some pretty significant ick.

Okay, so I am definitely not the target audience for this book, but I know I have several boys who will think it’s great, and even as a non-interested reader, I can appreciate that it was well-organized, and offers a broad look at its sport.  It begins by describing the history of how Mixed Martial Arts got started (a chapter I even found interesting), and then goes on to describe the moves, famous participants, and famous fights, before concluding with speculation about the future of the sport.  I liked that it included information about women fighters and was honest about the dangers inherent in the sport, but I worry that it’s likely to become fairly quickly dated, as more famous people/matches eclipse the famous people/matches of the past — but then, that’s a danger with all books of this sort.

The story of a young kangaroo being put to bed provides the setting for sharing a series of original songs to the tunes of popular lullabies.  At the top of the page for each song it tells the reader what tune to use (e.g. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or Rock-a-Bye Baby), but the words are new, with illustrations set to match.  It would be fun to share with students and see if they could identify the tune, and maybe even inspire them to write their own original re-writes.

The true story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral, well-told, given sentiment by focusing on the simplicity of the cart that carried his body.  It will be a nice addition to a robust collection that wishes to round out its coverage of MLK.  For smaller collections, or for young readers first learning about King, they’ll need to start with a book that gives more concrete information about his accomplishments, or they won’t care about his funeral, but for those who already have a grounding on who the man was, this book provides an additional chapter to the story that has not been told before.