This is the second picture-book biography of Alice Coachman I’ve read in the last year, and though very different, they’re both fabulous in their own way.  This one has the advantage of offering the reader more detailed information about this inspiring woman who beat all kinds of odds to become the first African-American woman to win Olympic gold in 1948, from the poverty in which she was raised, to the societal prejudices against both blacks and women, to the cancellation of the 1944 Olympics during WWII.  When she finally did get her chance, it was an amazingly close contest.

Eh.  It’s fine.  It’s a cutesy little story about a personified bear, whose mother has warned him to stay away from people, who starts worrying when he hears about the tooth fairy because he doesn’t know whether the tooth fairy is a bear or a person.  He consults many other personified animal friends, getting into discussions about the Easter Bunny, Santa, and Old Mother Hubbard along the way.  For this bear, Santa and the tooth fairy both turn out to be bears.  Will young human children find their own beliefs about these characters challenged?

Beautifully illustrated non-fiction, describing the startlingly long migration of the godwits from Alaska to New Zealand.  It chronicles a single godwit, from hatching in June, to fattening itself up and learning to fly, through taking off with her flock in mid-October, struggles with weather avoiding birds of prey, to her arrival in New Zealand eight days and 7,270 non-stop miles later.  The story really is a compelling one to add to a science unit on migration and/or birds, and the illustrations really are stunning.  My one criticism of the book is the way it continually referred the bird it was tracking as “the young female.”  I found it repetitive and a little annoying (the feminist in me kept asking what difference it made that the bird was female — do males not make this journey?).

The action and violence and battle scenes in this series tend to mark it for a male audience, but the characters and plots are well enough developed that I and some other female friends have enjoyed it also.  Given the violence, these books may be most fitting for middle school and high school audiences, but a good friend who is also an elementary librarian says she’s got a lot of fifth grade boys who love the series,   so I’ve added the complete collection to my shelves as well, but I only market it to fifth graders.  This, the eighth book in the series, takes place when Will has ceased to be an apprentice, and is a Ranger in his own right, but he’s teamed up with his former mentor and warrior friend to form an emergency squad sent to squash the growth of a cult who is taking over a neighboring country, stealing people blind and gradually over-taking the established authorities.

This is the second book by this author/illustrator that I’ve read (the other being Dancing with Grandma), and I’ve loved them both.  The illustrations are utterly charming, and the stories are whimsical and fanciful, even while they are very relatable (and I like that the grandparents are spunky).  This one tells of a young boy spending the day with his grandfather, and all the adventures they get up to (at least in their imaginations) with the things they find laying around Grandpa’s    shed and yard, from tree house and tire swinging to building a race car, rocket, and sailboat, and battling dragons in the bargain.

It’s fine.  I suppose it’s a good idea for all library collections to include a story about the kid who doesn’t want to have a babysitter, and this would work, but I’m not sure you can’t find better out there.  It’s a pretty basic story:  Tiny Troll is watching his mother get ready to go out for the evening, protesting that he doesn’t want a sitter, kindly older sitter comes, Mom goes, Tiny Troll throws tantrum, calm and nurturing sitter wins him over with mudmilk (monster equivalent to cocoa?) and a story, Tiny Troll falls asleep, and Mom returns safely.   The only thing that makes it particularly unique is the monster twist.

This fictional story set in France in the late 1800s describes an encounter between a young girl and artist Camille Claudel.  When Mademoiselle Claudel comes to stay for a time at the home of the girl’s grandmother, the famous sculptor helps the young girl look at the world and develop her own artistic skills while using the girl as a model for her own work.  A blurb in the back of the book shares the historical facts which inspired the story.  The soft illustrations suit the story and the setting.  A glossary in the front of the book (including pronunciation guide) introduces young readers to the French words sprinkled throughout the story.

A beautiful book, in illustrations and in sentiment, for young children.  With just 2 to three lines per page, told in rhyme, it works through a variety of animals, showing parents nestled with their young in a variety of animal homes, always keeping their young “safe and sound.”  It’s sappy, but in a good way.

In this poem, a young boy walks us through his day, sharing how his feelings shift as different things happen, each time comparing his mood to a color.  A good pairing to go with Dr. Seuss’s My Many Colored Days.  Also a good tool for helping children talk about their feelings, or for teaching about the figurative language of poetry.

Beautifully illustrated non-fiction, addressing the question as to what happens to insects in the winter, when we don’t notice them around anymore.  Each two-page spread takes on another insect, using the approach of, “If you were a…” to offer a few sentences about what that insect does to survive the cold of winter.  In the back of the book, a section on “More about the Insects in this book” offers further details, with a paragraph on each.  On the one hand, I wish those extra paragraphs had been offered directly on the pages for each insect, but perhaps that would have detracted from the artwork, which really is one of the assets of this book.