Although this title says its for kids, it is really for any beginning cook or baker. The information before the recipes is important and shown well; i.e., how to measure dry ingredients, different ways to measure the same amount, common terms, safety tips, list of needed utensils, and a picture list of ingredients. There are seven different bar cookie recipes that look delicious; easy steps and pictures to show what to do and what it should look like. There are five other books in this series, all of them cookies. Includes a message to adult helpers to let the kids learn math and science through cooking, and to set some ground rules. Kids love cooking and this book will be popular.

Asking questions and writing down the answers is a different way to write a biography. It almost makes it seem more personal because the questions asked are probably the ones you’d ask if you had a chance. That’s the idea of this new series, Cub Reporter Meets Famous Americans. The information is exactly what young kids want to know. Interesting that the Table of Contents shows each questions. Jackie Robinson has been a baseball hero for ages. Even today, as President Obama visits Cuba, the first president in over 80 years to do so, his fellow travelers are Jackie’s widow and daughter. Cubans love baseball and Jackie Robinson is the epitome of the sport.

In this version of an old folk tale, new is combined with old. The illustrations are colorful and have just enough detail. The size is perfect for little hands. Mother Pig warned them about the big, bad wolf and they were the ones who wanted to leave home. Kids were surprised that the wolf ate pig one and pig two. But their lives were snuffed out, just as was the wolf’s, with very little fanfare. Simple, yet just perfect.

Little Red Riding Hood is an old Grimm fairy tale but has been updated and revised for today’s children. First of all, the illustrations are colorful and include just enough detail to be interesting. Secondly, the size is just right for little hands. And, lastly, the story is changed by grandmother being smart enough to hide under the bed. Children loved this story because it has always been tough for them to believe a wolf could eat both a grandmother and a little girl. The change is good.

The McNasty pirate twins, Captain Gruesome and his brother, Captain Grisly, are determined to find the treasure buried in Little Snoring. However, two school friends, Tat and Hetty, are also in search of the treasure. The McNasty twins are pushed to the test against Tat and Hetty when they realize that the two friends know where the treasure is, and the gruesome pirates make several attempts to trick them into disclosing its’ location. Kids will love the nastiness, silliness, and mucus, as well as friendship. Black and white illustrations enhance the story.

In this fourth of Jiménez’s autobiographies, the author recounts his life from when he started his graduate work at Columbia University in the late 1960s to when he began his professorship at Santa Clara University in 1973.
With few true accounts of the Latino experience in America, Francisco Jimenez’s work comes alive with telling details about the warmth and resiliency of family and the quest for identity against seemingly impossible odds.

This is an eloquent work about overcoming poverty to receive an advanced education. A wonderful book to inspire young Hispanics in their pursuit of a better life.

Silliness runs rampant in this second book in the Ghastly McNastys series. The McNastys are twin pirates, though the illustrations show them not to be identical. The McNasty twins “were Gruesome and Grisly. And that was just their names…they hated two children in particular. Tat and Hetty, who had stopped them from finding the lost treasure of Little Snoring.” (p. 8, Book 1)

The action goes back and forth between the pirate brothers and Tat and Hetty. They both want the treasure they think is hidden inside Little Snoring Castle.

The story begins as school, in Miss Green’s class, is letting out for the summer. All the children and town folk are eager to audition for the Hollywood movie- Raiders of the Lost Shark- that is about to begin filming in Little Snoring Castle. The McNastys only audition to get inside the castle, so they can search for treasure, and since they already are pirates, they instantly get cast for the movie. In the meantime, Tat and Hetty have come up with a plan to capture the McNastys by tricking them into dungeon #244. Tat and Hetty make a fake treasure map marking dungeon #244 as the site of the treasure and hide it inside the chimney for the McNastys to find. The McNastys find the map, but the map is ruined before they can study it. They are about to torture the treasure’s location from Mrs. Slime and Miss Green, when Miss Green simply tells them the the correct dungeon’s number, # 433. When the pirates keep Mrs. Slime and Miss Green locked up in dungeon #53, one begins to cry and the other one’s nose runs so much the liquids begin to rise to the point of drowning them. A little later, Tat, Hetty, Big Wig, Dog, and Polly the parrot are escaping up a chimney from the pirates. The pirates light a fire, but Polly’s sea gull friends bring them a bucket full of Mrs. Slime’s and Miss Green’s snot and tears to douse the flames. It, also, sticks the pirates together for awhile. Tat and Hetty trade their knowledge of the treasure’s location ( dungeon #433) for the key to Mrs. Slime’s and Miss Green’s dungeon from the McNastys. Nasty as they are, the pirates throw the key into the moat and later release the movie’s sharks into the moat just as Tat finds the key. Hetty distracts the sharks away from Tat using strawberry jam sandwiches. What the McNastys find in #433 is not what they expected. Inside the secret room of #433 spider webs are strewn everywhere. There is a giant silver orb in the center of the room. The McNastys slice it open with their cutlasses. The diamonds they expect to fall out don’t. What does fall out are thousands of baby spiders. The McNastys run only to be swallowed alive by the sharks in the moat, which jump and free themselves into the open sea.

The first six pages cover basic shapes used in connection with the drawings : circles for sun, triangles in ice cream cones. Tools needed: pencils, colored pencils, sharpeners, erasers, markers, and paper.Then the bare basics of a color wheel are given. Nineteen creatures are presented to draw in 4 steps. The left page shows the finished drawing, in full color, followed by the four steps in black and white, on the right-hand page. Above the drawing , on the left page, is a fact or two about the creature represented below. Examples: ” The Diplodocus was the longest dinosaur that lived during the Late Jurassic Period!” ( 18) or  “In Chinese folklore, the dragon is a symbol of power and good luck!” (42)

I claim absolutely “NO” artistic talent, so when I followed the 4 step directions on eight of the creatures, I was amazed at how well the pictures turned out!

“This play is based on a true story titled, ‘A Locomotive Engineeress,’ which appeared in the magazine Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly in 1888.” (p. 4) The play takes place in Eastern Tennessee.  “Narrated in 1888; the main story takes place in 1856.” (p. 5) This play teaches: need is the mother of invention or you can do anything when you have to.

Older Bella narrates the play of how her father introduced her to working in the cab of a steam locomotive due to the fact the 15 year old Tennessee girls were not very friendly to 15 yr old Bella, a Yankee. The engineer taught Bella everything a male apprentice would be taught, but without a chance of ever using it, being female. Then one night the train’s fireman was sick at home and Bella took his place. On this trip to the mines, the weather was so stormy neither the engineer nor Bella could see the tracks in front of the engine. As a flash of lightning lit up the night, the engineer realized the train’s wheels did not have any traction. The wheels were just spinning, but the train was standing still. The engineer put Bella in charge of the train’s controls, while he spread sand on the tracks. Once the wheels found traction Bella drove it to the mine. And just in time, because the engine had lost most of its water for steam. Bella had saved the train and the town by bringing them their supplies.

Educators: Find FREE lesson plans and a Reader’s Theater script for this book at www.redchairpress.com/free-activities.