Here is a great mini-biography, a part of the Ordinary People Change the World series. It grabs the attention of the reader with its full color comic illustrations including the conversation bubbles. It is written in first person narrative.

Little Jackie Roosevelt Robinson was often scared as a child, but sports, of any kind, made him happy. “Those childhood games were some of the only times I wasn’t judged by the color of my skin.” In the 1920s and 1930s Jackie experienced not being able to go swimming in the all white pool until people complained. Then, “Every Wednesday, from 2 to 5 P.M., they’d open the pool to anybody black, Mexican, or Asian.” Later, Jackie was the first UCLA student to letter in four sports: baseball, football, basketball, and track. His white teammates would sometimes try to injure him, perhaps out of jealousy. Prior to World War II all white and all black sports teams played in separate leagues.  Due to the war, sports teams were short on players. Branch Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, needed baseball players. After scouting out black players, Rickey approached Robinson with a job offer. On April 18, 1946, Jackie Robinson played his first baseball game for Branch Rickey’s farm team, at the age of 27 yrs.

During his time with the Brooklyn Dodgers players purposely hit him in the head with baseballs, cleated him, spat on him, and threatened his family. “Was I mad? Yes. Was I scared? Yes. But I never let it stop me… for real change to come, you need to lead by example… When others see your example, they’ll stand with you. It’s the only way the world ever gets changed: Together.”

The “Dodgers won 6 penants in his 10 seasons“.

Following this powerful message there is a timeline of Jackie’s life through April 15, 2004 and 5 black and white photos of him.

Katie’s London Christmas is a beautiful, artistic rendering of famous landmarks in London, England.  The story takes place on Christmas Eve when Katie and her brother, Jack, hear Santa sneeze and go to investigate.  He invites them to come along which they do and they help him deliver presents in London.  It’s every kid’s fantasy come true.  However, the landmarks of London don’t mean much to the average American child who hasn’t been there nor even heard of the places.  Nice book but not a good purchase for our school library.

In this beautifully illustrated non-fiction book, Young, a master storyteller as well as author, weaves together a mystery as to who stole the Queen’s shadow.  As each animal accuses another, the story is how the accused could not have commit the theft because of their ability, or lack thereof, to see.  Round and round it goes, as each animal’s vision ability is discussed and proves them innocent.  The language and vocabulary isn’t for the younger children as the story is told in more mature language.  At the end of the book is information about how humans see, a glossary of vocabulary used, and an illustration and summary of how each of the animals in the story see and use their vision.  This book is the first of it’s kind that I have read and is so interesting and captivating that it was impossible to put down.  Learning was never so interesting.  Highly recommended.

My husband pores over sports news, trades, statistics, you name it.  His theory is that sports is a safe, gender neutral topic that just about anywhere and anytime you can find someone to talk to about.  This book would be right up his alley!  Football Rivalries goes back decades in the history of football with details of the games, players, weather, and anything else that was involved in the outcome of the game.  Sports enthusiasts and possibly reluctant readers, especially boys, will find something to talk about from this book.

Snow! is basically a wordless picture book with rich, creamy, thick paper and beautiful illustrations.  Young students will enjoy looking at the detail of bear and hare if they are inclined to be artistic.  Hare loves the snow and bear not so much.  Finally bear learns to love it when he gets to go sledding.

A proverb is an often-used saying that expresses a truth.  Kids used to be familiar with proverbs, as well as idioms, but nowadays it seems that kids don’t talk or listen to adults and they are not familiar with sayings.  It’s all new to them.  This book teaches students some basic facts about life, such as treating one another with kindness, doing a job well, using time well, taking care of yourself, just common sense stuff that they need to hear.

Patricia Polacco has been cranking out wonderful picture books based on personal stories for years.  An A From Miss Keller is an account of her own experience in school with a writing teacher nicknamed ‘Killer Keller’ because of her high, strict standards. Patricia works hard to achieve a coveted A grade from Miss Keller, but doesn’t seem to move past her regular C.  Patricia has an elderly neighbor whom she calls Pop who listens and gives her sage advice.  For her most important homework writing assignment, Patricia must write a personal narrative, but it isn’t until Pop suddenly dies that she is able to express her true feelings.  Miss Keller gave great exercises in using descriptive language and let her students know that she believed in them and that they had the ability within them to write great things.  This is such a touching story and shows how a really good teacher can inspire and draw work from her students.  If only there were more Miss Kellers around today.  This is a must purchase for both elementary and middle school libraries as well as any writing teacher.

There are so many things which bother me about this book that I don’t even know where to begin.  But since I am a visual person, I’ll start with the ‘photographs.’  These, of course, aren’t really photos but just someone manipulating internet images onto an outdoor image.  Much of the information is also straight from the internet, much of it from Wikipedia, so I’m not sure how accurate that is.    Then there is the whole time issue which concerns me.  Apparently bison originated in Eurasia and came to North America over the Bering land bridge about 10,000 years ago, right when these cats were disappearing.  Plus did horses then look like horses today?  Young kids love to look at pictures of saber-tooth tigers, however, these pictures are obviously doctored and the text isn’t of the highest quality.  Your money is better spent elsewhere.

With a good imagination, you’ll never be bored.  This is a story about Niko, a boy who excels at imagining adventures.  He has even gone so far as to build his own spaceship by recycling boxes and other things which could pass for controls.  Niko is on his way to the moon along with his dog, Tag, and trustworthy friend, Radar (a robot).    Unfortunately, his sister and a neighbor’s cat have tagged along.  They make it to the moon and don their spacesuits and helmets and go on a hunt.  Miffed at his sister, Niko leaves her there and starts for home.  Tag is upset, the cat is upset, Radar is upset, so Niko goes back and fetches his sister.  The story is how I would expect an imaginative boy to act.  The illustrations are outstanding as many of them feature black pages representing space, and white text.  Hopefully Niko’s creativity will spur some in students reading this book.

Strange and wonderful is right!  This amazing, intelligent invertebrate is a mollusk.  The book features extremely accurate, detailed illustrations rather than photographs.  Pringle includes a wide variety of factual information which captures the attention of any reader.  It is written mostly in engaging text rather than isolated snippets accompanying a photo.  The fascinating introduction to the octopus tells of different species, its intelligence, shapes, colors, textures of skin, methods of hunting, survival, and predators.  Henderson’s accurate, appealing, and colorful illustrations are well paired with the text.  A glossary, index, additional resources, and related quality websites are included.