A small spiral bound book with alternating pages of heavy board and transparency film, it provides basic information for young readers about different types of homes, from prehistoric caves to modern city sky-scrapers.  Each two-page spread (with one tranparency in the middle) is dedicated to a different type of home from a different part of the world, with 4-6 sentences describing its unique features and why they are helpful to the people who live there.  While I know students will be intrigued by the transparent pages, and the information is sound, if scant, I worry about how this type of binding will hold up under library use.  I don’t expect it to last long.

The illustrations are fabulous: they’re charming and sweet and inviting.  But then you start reading.  There are actually several short stories, but they’re all rather dull and stilted in the telling: this said Maudie, that said Bear.  Maybe they’re meant to appeal to the very young pre-school child, but I think they need to hear more fluent examples of language.  But the pictures really are delightful.

Given that it’s meant to be about humor, it’s rather dry in the telling.  It’s got some good information.  I learned some stuff.  It’s got some jokes and comics sprinkled throughout, but there’s no color to make it visually appealing.  Somehow it seems that it ought to be funnier (or at least more interesting) in the telling.

A picture book for kids to share with their grandmas, the illustrations are cheerful and fun, and depict a whole variety of grandmas.  The rhyming text celebrates the variety of grandmas found in our world:  different ways they look, different things they like to do, different names they’re called by.  It reminds kids that if they haven’t got a grandma of their own nearby,  it’s possible to adopt one.  It reminds us all to cherish our grandmas.  It’s a delight.

It’s got a beautiful cover, and the author has received all sorts of awards for other books, but I had a hard time really getting into this one, or imagining who would.  It’s a work of historical fiction set in 1912 in the Cuban countryside, told in free-verse poetry.  The main character is a girl who has been diagnosed with what they refer to at that time as “word blindness,” what we would call dyslexia, and these are supposedly her collection of poems she’s written in a blank book her mother gave her.  Besides dealing with her learning disability in a time when society was less accepting of such, she’s also dealing with the turmoil of living in a time of political unrest, and there are vague allusions to a creepy guy who works for her parents who may be trying to get too friendly with the daughters of the house.  The problem with the poetic form to tell the story is that it leaves a lot unsaid, and the reader is left piecing things together.  And to be honest, the girl comes across rather whiney.  I so much wanted to like it more than I did.  I think there is a gap in children’s literature for both hispanic kids and kids with learning disabilities finding themselves represented.  But I don’t think there’s enough here for any of my students to really connect with.

This is a very readable book tackling some seriously complex science in an approach that is rather conversational.  Just when one explanation brings up some question the reader wonders about, that’s the next thing they explain.  And yet it doesn’t give the mistaken impression that scientists have all the answers, either; it acknowledges the way our scientific understanding continues to grow and evolve.

It’s a very sentimental, idealistic version of history, focusing on the family relationships between the famous Kennedy brothers.  Still, who says there’s anything wrong with sentiment and idealism?  The soft water-color illustrations are stunning and really draw the reader in to the story.

Really flashy graphics and color photos are visually appealing, but REALLY low on substance: it’s got a couple of sentences in large font on each two-page spread — mostly pictures. Great binding, though!  Still, not worth the cost of the binding.

As a personal souvenir of her trip, maybe to share with family & friends, this is a beautiful book, but as a published work for the general public, I don’t think it’s got enough focus (or is it an issue of enough breadth?) to appeal to random readers.  This author has written other books that got lots of impressive awards, but I just thought this rambled.

Okay, so maybe I’m not a fair judge, as I haven’t read the first four books in the series, and maybe I would like it better if I had, but the reality of series is that students don’t always come to them in order, and each volume really needs to be able to stand alone in my opinion.  This one didn’t.  There’s no explanation of characters or plot — it just picks up in the middle of some adventure with some kid trying to rescue his friends, but there’s no character development to get me to care.  Maybe if all of that had been addressed in the earlier volumes I would already care, but I didn’t.  Most definitely not recommended unless you get the whole set, and I still don’t know that I’d recommend it.