Need an ‘epic’ book to get your reluctant boys to read? ( EPIC is the series name.) This might just be the book you’re looking for a young boy who is interested in WWE wrestling.  Randy Orton is highly visual with action shot photos reminiscent of baseball cards and is light on the text.  Five short sections: ‘Debut’, ‘Who is Randy Orton?’, ‘Life Before WWE’, ‘A WWE Superstar’, and ‘Winning Moves’.

Randy Orton is the third generation of wrestler in his family. He follows his grandfather, father, and uncle as wrestlers. Randy wrestled in high school, became a Marine,  has been in a couple of movies, and now is a professional wrestle with the WWE          (your young boys will know what these letters stand for, even if it is not revealed with the book’s text).

Includes: glossary, www.factsurfer.com, and index.

Throughout history, women have first had to battle the prejudice of simply being a woman before being allowed to achieve other greatness. It was no different for Marie Curie, but she also had to battle the prejudice of being Polish under a Russian controlled government. The first chapter begins, ” In a time when men ruled the science world, Marie Curie stood alone as a female scientist. Today, she stands out in history as the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. She is also the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in two different sciences: physics in 1903 and chemistry 1911.” (p. 5) First, she needed to study in secret with other Polish women, followed by helping her older sister go to university, before earning enough money as a governess to attend university in  France. Even today it is hard for a married woman to juggle college life with a child, but, in 1897, there were no day-care facilities. Marie’s recently widowed father-in-law helped out with child care. Marie was a good mother. Her working on her doctorate did not distract her from being a good mother. Marie worked with Wilhelm Conrad Rðntgen’s newly discovered X-rays and coined the phrase ‘radioactivity’. She discovered two new elements: polonium and radium. ” Curie believed radioactivity was an atomic property of the radioactive element…In years to come, scientists would reveal that Curie’s hypothesis was correct.” (p. 30) At this time the effects of radioactivity on humans was not known. She didn’t “believe that it was their research that was making them sick.” (p. 31) Her husband Pierre always made sure Marie was given the credit she deserved because it was her research, Pierre was the assistant. After Pierre’s death, scandal erupted in her and her daughters’ private lives. She kept away from the media. That and Marie’s ill health kept her away from research for awhile, but she eventually was able to return. Marie Curie’s work with X-rays helped in WWI by using X-ray equipment with injured soldiers.

She died in 1934 still not believing in the health risks of radiation. “Marie Curie will long be remembered … Because of her, the benefits and the dangers of radiation are understood much better. She also paved the way for the equality of women in the science field and beyond.” (p. 41)

In addition to the story of Marie Curie’s life, author Katherine Krieg has included primary sources and engaging questions for the readers to ponder off and on through the book and at the end in the section ‘Stop and Think’.

Gus is a small book (6.5 in. X 6.5 in.) for small hands* with a limited reading vocabulary. “Gus is a small yellow gosling who likes to be by himself.” Gus is an active observer in the world around him. Gus watches a spider spin a web, watches mice scamper, and a turtle dig a hole. Gus then finds the eggs laid by the turtle in the hole and sits on them until they hatch.

Young readers will be as joyful as Gus in their exploration of this book about Gus’ world!

Simple, though expressive illustrations.

*Beatrice Potter wrote small books a for small hands, too.

Do you need a good scare? How about visiting a cemetery? Not just any cemetery, but “the oldest existing cemetery in the city” of New Orleans. It opened in 1789. The graves are above ground due to flooding and very damp ground.  “In this cemetery, a body stays inside a coffin for a year. Then the coffin is removed from the tomb to make room for another body. The bones are put in a bag and stay in the tomb.” (p. 10)

The book is divided into three very short chapters: A Lost Ghost, City of the Dead, and Haunted Cemetery. Specific people are  mentioned as being possible ghosts which many visitors sense while walking through this cemetery. New Orleans is usually a very warm place and yet visitors often feel cold in parts of this cemetery. Photos taken in this cemetery often have orbs of light in them once they are printed, which the photographer couldn’t see when taking the photo. “Are ghosts really in the cemetery or do people just imagine them? Perhaps the best way to find out is to visit. But keep an eye out for black cats and disappearing guests.” (p. 21) And so ends this book.

There is more photo than text at each page turn. The photos are quite clear in the center of the page, but get blurred around the edges and there has been an eerie florescent green tint added to the blurred edges of pages.

Includes: Glossary, To Learn More with books and www.factsurfer.com , and Index.

Here is a seasonal book with every two pages depicting and Christmas scene in which the reader is to search for Santa and his elves.  A short description of the event depicted is included.  This would be a good choice for one or two students to use for quiet time.  Similar to I Spy.

There was quite an expense in publishing this full-color book about Bad Piggies.  Lots of pages given to drawing different expressions on faces.  This whole Angry Birds Bad Piggies thing seems, to me, to be a fad and something that won’t last long.  Also, the audience to which this book is geared is limited.  The drawing lessons themselves are simple and easy to follow.  The angry looks are tiresome.

This is book #162 of the series The Boxcar Children, originally created by G.C. Warner.  The last scores of books have been written by ghost authors as Warner has long passed.  These books have the same four original characters, just as charming and wholesome as ever.  They still live with Grandfather Alden and his housekeeper, Mrs. McGregor.  Each book is a mystery which occurs away from home and in which the children solve.  In this particular installment, they are at a friend of Mrs. McGregor, which is a first for me, it’s usually Grandfather’s friend.  The town is called Sleepy Hollow and is almost Halloween.  Running ghost tours, the family friend is trying to raise money to maintain upkeep on the family home.  However, someone is trying to sabotage the tours and make them lose their home.  It’s pretty easy to figure out who the baddie is and even the Alden children pretty much had it at the very beginning.  There are always a few misleading clues but this one was pretty clear.  These books are terrific for the beginning reader, but there are enough of them now.  If beginning readers read all 162 books, they’d move on to harder books.  Time for the Boxcar children to age and move on.

This fun-filled book by Lois Ehlert is packed with underground worlds to explore, right under your feet!  It has the colorful collages that Ehlert is known for and the rhyming text that carries the reader through the tunnels to the end that has fantastic facts about moles and the other critters found in this book.

Tacky and his fellow penguins have transformed their home into a haunted igloo in preparation for Halloween, but the festivities turn truly scary after the hunters from Tacky’s original 1988 picture book show up, and they’re hungry. Luckily, Tacky shows up just in time, dressed as none other than one of the hunters. The ensuing shenanigans offer lots of laughs! As ever, Tacky proves that even the unruliest of penguins can save the day. Fun reading for all ages!

Equipped with a guide to trees, a girl with a crown of ginger hair walks through an arboretum, identifying and collecting a variety of leaves, including honey locust, sweet gum, linden, and maple. Wellington alternates between scenes of the girl on her walk and those of her at home, where she makes crayon rubbings of the leaves in her Leaf Book. Rubbings and photocopies of leaves appear throughout Wellington’s mixed-media images, while tiny sidebars offer details about the trees and leaves presented. The girl’s clipped narration (“Oak leaves are strong. They are good for my art projects. I make leaf prints in many colors”) is perhaps better suited to children learning to read on their own than to story-time sessions. Regardless, many readers are likely to be inspired to turn their own autumnal observations into creative projects.