If you’ve got the other Mallory books in your library and you’ve got students who are fans, go ahead and get this one, too, but as a stand-alone book I wouldn’t bother.  It tells the story of ten-year-old Mallory planning a sleepover, trying to balance her best friend’s vision of the party to end all parties and her parents’ instructions to keep things small and quiet.  Not surprisingly, a whole series of things go wrong as the party spirals out of control, and the book ends with Mallory acknowledging where she made bad choices, apologizing to injured parties, and promising to be wiser in the future.  The girls’ problems were believable and predictable.  My biggest gripe with the book was the behavior of the parents: the book focuses on all Mallory should have done to avoid the problems, but to me the failings of the parents were much more obvious — as adults they should have been able to foresee the possible problems and been involved.  The book lays way too much of the blame for what happened at Mallory’s feet, instead of holding the idiotic parents responsible.

If you are looking for books to offer your Jewish patrons for celebrating holidays, this one depicting Violet and Simon as two young bunnies celebrating Passover with their family is a good choice.  Throughout the preparations and celebration, each character declares what s/he likes best about Passover.  Those patrons not already familiar with the traditions of the holiday may wish for a book that offers more explanation.

Like so many little girls, Periwinkle has a favorite tutu that she love to wear, no matter what she’s doing.  One day while painting in it, she gets a big splot of paint on it.  She tries a variety of techniques to remove the spot, and a variety of ways to repurpose the tutu, but nothing works.  In the end she gets her paints back out and turns the splot into a flower, accompanied by a bunch more flowers.  I know that the topic is sure to attract little girl readers, and I really like the message it offers about turning mistakes into opportunities.  I wish the illustrations had more vibrancy to them — there’s something a bit drab about the color palette used.

It’s one of those books to be read at milestone moments, from Kindergarten graduation to college graduation.  It’s a book that reminisces, looking back at the types of behaviors that lead us to learn and to grow, reminding all readers that there are many roads to success, and many kinds of learning.

A charming counting book, using rhyming text to describe the antics of a litter of pups. Counting up from one to ten, and down again from ten to one, the cute illustrations help support the verbs so that potentially unfamiliar vocabulary will be understood.

I wouldn’t have thought chickens would produce enough material for an entire book of poetry dedicated to them.  But I was surprised by the subtle humor to be read between the lines of these brief verses.  The rhythm and rhyme and humor are enhanced by charming, comical illustrations.

Energetic color photos with bright graphics will draw readers in to this popular topic, and the informations is thorough and easily readable.  It includes descriptions of several different careers within the Cheerleading world, including coaches, choreographers, judges, etc.  Though the tone is positive and encouraging, it doesn’t sugarcoat challenges: it tells how fierce the competition for professional cheerleading positions is, and explains that salaries are very low, that most professional cheerleaders have other jobs, too.  And it’s got a sturdy binding, too.  A worthwhile selection.

Willie’s class is playing a game to create silly sentences that demonstrate alliteration using the first letter of their names.  In between his classmates sharing their sentences we see Willie worrying about what words start with W.  In the end, of course, he does come up with something.  The book would have been better off if it had just stopped there and stood as an alliteration books that teachers could use to spark similar activities in their own classes.  The declaration in the back of the book says we’ve just read about being brave, but that’s a pretty weak assertion.  As with other books in this series there are several pages in the back of the book with extra learning activities that only connect to the story in the most tenuous fashion.

A great book to use as an introduction to a unit studying bears.  The information is sparse to say the least, but the beautiful illustrations will spark young students’ curiosity as they realize how many different types of bears there are.  A world map in back indicates where the different bears can be found.  Young researchers can use this as a leaping off place to learn what more they can about each.

For the most part it’s a book about a little girl listing all the different things she likes to do.  Tucked in rather off-handedly is the fact that the girl can’t here and she talks with her hands.  In the back is a declaration telling the reader they’ve just “found out how much fun doing what you like can be.”  Really? This reader didn’t think so.  I think it’s probably a bad sign in general if you have to tell the reader flat out what the point was, but it’s particularly bad if the text failed to make that point.  This declaration is followed up by some “learning activities” that don’t seem to have anything to do the declared purpose.