There was no department of children’s services in the middle ages.  After being threatened by the innkeeper his dad sold him to for beer, Will Sparrow runs off and must make his own way in the world any which way he can.  He meets (and often finds himself cheated by) many interesting characters along the way, as he fills his belly by foraging, thieving, and teaming up with assorted hucksters at market fairs.  I love Karen Cushman’s books in general, and I would count this one among her better ones: there’s something about rooting for a kid on his own, wondering what it would be like to find yourself in such a situation, that works as a great way to draw young readers into the genre of historical fiction.  The depictions of the setting will draw students in and help them imagine a time period far-removed, about which they may know little.  I’m a fan.

This is a fascinating little book, explaining a lot of very complex ideas in clear, understandable text.  After a brief explanation of the history of exploration, it goes on to describe the many challenges that must be tackled to achieve interstellar exploration within the next 100 years.  The team that has gathered to study this possibility includes scientists, engineers, doctors, businesspeople, etc. The book manages to make clear just how difficult such a prospect, while still inspiring confidence and hope that it will be achieved someday.  My only gripe with the book is something I’ve been noticing in a lot of non-fiction lately: a “timeline” that really isn’t a proper timeline at all, but just a list of dates of significant events.

This is a good, solid little book, which sticks to it’s focus.  It describes the many different types of public office for which candidates must be elected, and explains all the things involved in running a campaign, from fundraising and getting petitions signed to political parties and rallies and commercials.  It did a very deliberate job of making sure to balance photos of Democrats and Republicans, famous candidates and candidates for smaller, municipal offices.  It did state that, “The first U.S. president elected by secret ballot was Grover Cleveland in 1892,” which leaves the reader wondering, how were they chosen before then?

As a general rule, I like this series of books.  This one did have a lot of good solid information, clearly explained, but I found it’s definition of minerals somewhat unclear/contradictory: in one place it defines minerals as inorganic substances found in the earth, which are not alive and “do not come from plants or animals.” Yet elsewhere in the book it states that many foods contain minerals, including fruits and vegetables, eggs and dairy products.  No where does it offer an explanation for this contradiction.  I’m afraid students will find it confusing.

I guess it’s adequate, but I was not overly impressed with anything other than the binding.  I didn’t like the textbook style assignments/questions given throughout, interrupting the text, and I thought the text could have been more clearly stated.

This series seems to be some misguided attempt to morph library books with text books.  It really is a clearly written book about a topic of high interest to many students.  I would recommend it if they hadn’t gone and stuck a bunch of textbook assignment questions at the end of every chapter.  These will be a turn-off to students, and are unlikely to be used by teachers — they don’t enhance the book, but instead detract from its appeal to recreational readers.  Another thing: I’m tired of books that list a sequence of dates along a line and call it a timeline — when I was taught to make timelines in elementary school, it was a requirement that the distance along the line be representative the of the time it was attempting to illustrate — when the same distance might represent one year or seventeen years along the same line, it’s missing the point of a timeline.

I’ve been a fan of this series for years: the cartoonish illustrations, and the short blurbs of information make history accessible, and non-threatening, and the way the series emphasizes all the miserable, unpleasant aspects of history, putting the reader into the position of first person, is a draw that hooks a lot of otherwise resistant readers.  As much as I like the series in general, there have been some titles over the years that I thought failed to live up to their titles.  This one did a great job of showing just how difficult life was for pioneers heading West.  Plus, I love the sturdy bindings on these books.

Every kid who has ever had the dinner-table show-down with their parents over some vegetable they refused to eat will enjoy this tale.  Even when Martha’s parents insist that green beans are good for her, Martha knows they’re really bad.  She’s proven right one day when a gang of personified green beans dressed as hoodlums from the wild west arrive in town, reeking havoc on anyone who ever said, “Eat your green beans.”  When they take Martha’s parents hostage, she’s delighted at first with her new freedom to stay up late and eat whatever she wants.  When she decides she really does miss them, and decides to rescue them, the only way to set them free is to eat all the marauding beans.

What a fun, fabulous book!  Fifteen different fairy tales have each inspired two poems, representing different points of view, focusing on different elements of the story.  For example Cinderella laments in one poems about how much smarter it would have been to wear more comfortable shoes, while her step-sisters brag in the other about how they taught her everything they knew.  A variety of poetic forms are used, and paragraphs in the back provide background on the different variations in these familiar folk tales. This would be a great tool for helping teach students not only about poetry, but about point of view and expanding on familiar tales.  It’s sure to inspire some fabulous creations by the children who enjoy it.

The whole premise behind this book is completely lame.  It doesn’t describe any of the adaptations these animals make that allow them to survive extreme cold.  It’s simply an illustrated list of animals who do live in cold climates.  But the format in which it is presented borders on false: each page simply states an animal that can survive at a given temperature and then asks the question whether any animal exists in colder climate (the first page starts with an Arctic bumblebee that survives 40 degrees — even us wimpy humans in our mild Pacific Northwest climate survive colder than that every winter).  As you turn the page, the pictured thermometer drops a few more degrees, and another animal is declared to survive even that temperature.  The polar bear is described as surviving -34 degrees — you’re telling me if the temperature drops to -35 degrees all the polar bears drop down dead?  Given that many of the animals listed live in the same geographical areas, I’m guessing they must survive together.  After the last animal listed (the Siberian husky at -75 degrees), the repeated question as to whether any animal can exist in a colder climate is answered with, “Perhaps. Who knows what could exist in colder climates?”  I’m thinking man’s study of the temperature ranges in different parts of our world, and the animals who live in those regions is pretty vast, do data probably does exist as to what is the coldest part of the planet and what kind of animals live there.  The whole thing is just bad science, badly written.  The illustrations are nice, but they’re not enough to rescue the poor text. Don’t buy it.