It’s got large, full-color photos for visual appeal, and it’s purposely written simply for early readers, but when each two-page spread is dedicated to a different food group, and only has 2-3 sentences to say about it, the information provided is so skimpy it hardly seems to justify the price.

A sweet book for dog-lovers, it tells the story of Duffy’s day, from his own perspective, hitting such highlights as his before breakfast nap, his after breakfast nap, his late morning nap, etc.  Not surprisingly, when the day ends snuggled up for a bedtime story, Duffy doesn’t find himself to be the least bit sleepy. The fun illustrations are full of personality, and bound to make dog lovers go, ahhh… Clocks scattered throughout the book tracking the time of day could be used for math practice for kids learning to tell time.

Kids will be drawn to the cartoon illustrations full of characters which they already know from other Bailey books.  Obviously the book is not going for believability — Bailey is a dog who walks upright and attends school like just another student in the class.  At the museum his canine instincts raise their head when he climbs on the dinosaur bones and has to be told they’re not a snack.  It’s cute I guess, but I can’t claim to be a huge fan.

I like the concept behind the series, and it’s got a reasonable amount of information contained in the text, but I was disappointed by the visuals in the book: besides using an over-all drab color scheme, it missed many opportunities to offer pictorial support for the text (e.g. right next to the paragraph that says she was born “near the Salmon River in Idaho” is a map that labels neither the Salmon River nor Idaho; when telling the story of load their buffalo-hide tepee onto a travois to go to the hunting grounds where she was kidnapped while picking berries with her mother, the photo on the page is of berries — a concept most students will be well-familiar with, instead of a travois). It’s adequate, but I think there’s better available.

This beautiful, vibrant book is the last we’ll have from this talented author-illustrator who passed away last year.  Monkey wants to cross the river to reach a tree of ripe mangoes, and Crocodile wants to eat Monkey’s heart.  No matter how Crocodile tries to trick Monkey, Monkey always outsmarts him, coming to the conclusion in the end that though Crocodile’s teeth may be sharp, his mind is dull.  A worthy addition to a library’s folktale section, to place along side McDermott’s other work.

This is a 25th anniversary re-illustrated update of Tedd Arnold’s first picture book by the same title, telling the tale of young Walter, who lives in a tall apartment building and learns the hard way that perhaps he should have listened to his father when he was told, “No jumping on the bed.”  Instead, Walter jumps so vigorously that he proceeds to crash through the floor of his bedroom, into the apartment below, continuing to fall clear through to the basement, collecting startled neighbors to fall with him through each floor along the way.  If you don’t already have this classic, it’s fun, and a worthy selection for the library, but to be quite frank I preferred the original illustrations, so if you’ve already got the older one, you don’t need this one, too.

Gruntly is a hog in every meaning of the word.  His friends are sick of his greedy grabs for everything around, but he learns his lesson at the town treasure hunt — Gruntly is so greedily determined to get to all the treasure first and keep it all for himself that he never stays long enough to hear or read the end of the clues, but jumps to conclusions and heads off at full speed in the wrong direction.  When he does finally catch up to his friends, he is moved by the recognition they all left his portion for him, that he ended up sharing in the end.  Is it believable that one would change their ways so easily? No.  But it’s not aiming for believability, but for making a point, which it does admirably.  Students will be drawn to the familiar illustrations from other books by this pair, and they will delight in using the rhyming clues to make predictions about what mistakes Gruntly makes.  A worthy choice.

What a beautiful book!  The illustrations strike one first, rich in color and evocative of the time and place and mood of the story.  The story is equally beautiful – that of a boy ostracized since birth, as the illegitimate child of a mixed-race, mixed-class relationship.  Though left without a standing in the society in which he lives, Martin continuously responds in kindness and compassion to all those around him, including those who ostracized him, becoming known as a great healer sought by all.

Given how popular fairies always are, as well as ABC books, I’m surprised this hasn’t been done before.  It had a good variety of words for the alphabet, selecting from a wide range of fairy lore, each accompanied by a rhyming quartet, just enough to give a touch of explanation, and perhaps encourage enthusiasts to seek further information. The illustrations are charmingly drawn, including a human boy and girl and three fairies that continue throughout the book, along with page-specific illustrations that are supportive of the text.  My one criticism of the book, keeping it from earning an R* rating, is that there’s something jarring about the color-scheme used in the illustrations – too many clashing colors are visually off-putting.

What a fun book!  The text is the lyrics from the classic Halloween song by the same title.  The illustrations are fabulous — hitting just the right note between creepy and silly.  Songs are known to be great tools for emergent readers, with repetitive words and rhythm to help them predict, and this one is just so fun, I think it will be a holiday favorite even with older kids.  Highly recommended.