I don’t like it. I found several places where it over-simplifies information, sometimes unnecessarily vague, and sometimes less than accurate.  When asking the question, “How long will one month take?” instead of saying about thirty days, it just says that a month is longer than a week but shorter than a year.  On the next page it states, “People around the world measure time the same way,” before going into describing seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years.  But there are plenty of places in the world where people live in remote areas without access to detailed timekeepers, where time is still measured much more vaguely. On the next page it states that “Clocks measure seconds, minutes, and hours,” yet not all clocks measure seconds. On the next page it describes a calendar by stating that, “Each month gets a page.”  Yet lots of calendars show a year or a week on one page.  There are better time book available.  Choose something else.

It’s a good solid little book. It starts by defining climate and climate change, then goes on to describe several factors that influence climate change, both natural phenomena like the tilt of the planet and volcanoes, as well as human activities such as burning fossil fuels and cutting down trees.  It gives examples of some effects already being felt, and predicts what is likely to happen in the future.  It concludes by listing thinks individuals can do to help reduce human impact on climate change.  It’s got enough scary stuff for readers to take notice of the problem, yet it offers hope by suggesting things that can be done to help.  For those people out there who don’t believe climate change is due to human activity, this book acknowledges that it’s not all due to human activity.

This was not one of the better books in this series.  It was a bit bland, a bit repetitive about the chain of life, and not as well-organized as I could’ve hoped — it’s got a two page spread describing different kinds of crocodiles and what an impact they have on the chain of life, and then four pages later it tells us that crocodiles live in wetlands, which it already told us.  Still, it’s got some good information that could be useful for habitat reports.

It’s fine.  It describes Earth as the “Goldilocks” planet, since it’s just right for life.  It goes into detail listing what features are necessary for life, and why none of the other planets in our solar system are suitable, and it ends by considering the possibility that there could be other suitable planets in the universe, but they’re so far away that the likelihood of contact is slim.  It uses every type of non-fiction text feature it could think of: bold print, subtitles, sidebars, captions, definitions, diagrams, etc.  But it still just looks like a school book, unlikely to be chosen for recreational reading. An adequate selection if it fills a need, but nothing special about it to set it apart.

The best thing about this book is that it shares with students the way scientific knowledge unfolds: it begins by describing the discovery that many frogs were going extinct very suddenly from an unknown cause, then it proceeds to describe the unraveling of this puzzle.  It shares the scientists thought processes as they considered and ruled out assorted possible causes and why.  Even when they discover that the deaths are being caused by a particular fungus, this just led to further questions as to how the fungus spread and what could be done about it. It then goes on to describe the creation of a conservation center and the assorted problems that had to be overcome, as well as describing the possible avenues being considered to develop a long-term solution to the problem for the future.  The color photos are vibrant and the graphics are visually appealing without being busy or distracting.  A beautiful, worthwhile book, which could become out-dated rather soon.

Bright graphics and color photos illustrate this really rather comprehensive look at assorted tools used in fighting crime.  It’s up-to-date at this time with a lot of modern technology, giving a brief explanation as to how each device operates.  It raises questions as to the privacy issues some worry about, and the limitations of some technologies.  It includes a timeline in the back that looks at the history of crime-fighting (dating back to the first known police force in ancient Egypt).  I think it will be of high interest to kids who watch crime dramas on TV and are curious about how all these gadgets work, though it may go more toward sparking curiosity that fully satisfying it.  My one caution is that it is likely to be an out-dated book rather quickly, as technology changes so rapidly.

Granted, I’m not a huge fan of graphic novels to begin with, but I’ve read some I liked.  Not this one.  The artwork is visually appealing and all, but the story is lame and incomplete.  It takes seven pages to tell us the main character isn’t a morning person and is bored with small-town life, and then when she finally gets to school, she over-hears part of a conversation between some classmates that set’s her imagination going.  Suspecting there’s something strange going on, she spends the day following them, and along the way there are these strange little alien guys who seem to be following her, too, but the reader never actually gets to find out what’s really going on, because it just ends abruptly with, “after all this story is far from over.”  As far as I can tell, the only reason this book exists is to try to get someone to buy the next book.  It won’t be me.

Based on the characters from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, this story takes place at some indeterminate time in the midst of Belle’s stay at the castle, after she’s stopped being fearful, but before she’s fallen in love with the beast. Reading a book before bed one evening, Belle discovers the last chapter of the book is missing.  She spends the rest of the story deciphering clues that lead to other clues until she finds the book (with the help of the Beast). It’s a beginning level chapter book that will appeal to some students simply because it’s Belle, but it’s really rather a trite little story.

The sequel to Our Only May Amelia, this tells of the continuing adventures of a young girl growing up in Southwest Washington around the beginning of the 20th century.  Her family is a poor farming family, amid a community of poor farming/logging families.  Most of the folks in the community are immigrants from Finland, and like our immigrant communities today, they depend on the children to help translate, as much of the older generation speaks limited English.  When a slick city guy comes to offer a deal that’s too good to be true, Amelia is the one who speaks for her father, getting him to sign papers that they think will bring them all riches, but instead robs them of all their savings.  What really makes these books such a treat are the relationships between Amelia and her brothers and the network of connections in this close-knit community.  The only thing I wasn’t crazy about is the new cover — since the story is set before the days of color photography, the glossy cover seems a little disconnected.

This is the second book in this series I’ve read (though it’s actually the third book in a trilogy — I never read the one in the middle), and I’ve really enjoyed both.  Set during the Revolutionary War, it tells the adventures of a girl dressed and living as a boy aboard a privateering ship.  In the first book she was disguised to everyone; somewhere in book two, she must have revealed herself to the couple trusted friends who know her secret in this one.  The book does a good job of describing what life aboard ship would have been like in those days, outlining the differences and relationships between the navy ships, privateers, and pirates, and it’s got good plot and character development to draw the reader into Hannah’s adventures.  The only real problem is that the title gives away the ending, as it is not until the very end of the book that Hannah is made Captain of the ship.