This Natural Wonders series is designed to support primary and early readers with non-fiction, landform topics.   Each two-page spread presents a big, colorful and quite amazing photo on the right…with a simple three sentence text on the left.  Students learn the basics of how glaciers are formed and how they move.  Two famous glaciers are featured such as the one at Canada’s Banff National Park and Malaspina Glacier in Alaska.  How people are affected by glaciers is at the conclusion.  Having a three-year-old granddaughter, I appreciate less wordy non-fiction texts, however, I felt that this title errored on the side of too little information.  The book is over in a heartbeat…and she is wondering…is that all?  The biggest asset to this title is the photographs, which are spectacular for visual literacy.  Back Matter includes Glossary, Read More, Internet Sites, and Index.

There are now over 30 Horrible Harry books in this series and author Suzy Kline is keeping them current with the times. This time the theme is dealing with bullies.

South School will soon be having a book fair. Each classroom has the incentive to read more books before the book fair begins because for each book read the reader will have his/her name entered into a drawing for a free book from the book fair. Now the plot thickens when third graders are given the chance to become members of the School Safety Patrol.  Harry does not make the safety patrol, but Mary, and his friend Doug do. Mary soon becomes overly zealous in her duties as a Safety Patrol Hall Monitor.  Warnings are no longer given for first offensives, but citations are to the point where Doug, her partner, feels she is becoming a bully.  Students are having a difficult time getting to and from the library unscathed with their book fair raffle tickets when Mary is on duty. Then on top of that, Doug sees Mary offer to deposit students’ tickets for them, but before she does, Mary erases the back of the ticket and writes something in ink on the back of each ticket. Could Mary be stuffing the raffle box with tickets from other students with her name on them? Doug and Harry try to catch Mary at her game before they report her to the teacher.

Mary learns a lesson by being giving a warning, not a citation, by an older safety patrol member, when she runs in the hallway on her week-off from safety patrol.

Then, when Mary wins the classroom drawing for the free book from the fair book, Harry and Doug discover Mary has been neatly rewriting the students’ names on their tickets and not her own name, as they had thought.

“Many animals and plants live and grow in rivers. This book looks at how they need each other to survive.” (p. 5) Basic ‘food chain’ vocabulary and information is given throughout this book in large font, where there is more picture than text per page (usually  60% /40%). Vocabulary includes: producers, consumers, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, predators, prey, scavenger, decomposer, and food web.

One aspect where this book is different is that it gives examples of river food chains from three different rivers each on a different continent. A photo of the river is given on the left page with descriptive text information opposite the right page with its four smaller photos linking the plant and animals in the food chain together with arrows. The rivers include the Amazon River in South America, the Severn River in Europe, and the Limpopo River in Asia. The concept of ‘food web’ is then described and pictured for an unnamed North American river.

Coca-Cola is a true piece of Americana which is known around the world in over 200 countries. Little did I know, it began as a medicine to relieve headaches. John Pemberton was a doctor and pharmacist prior to the Civil War. Approximately 20 years after the Civil War, he developed Coca-Cola. At first, approximately 40 years,  Coca-Cola was only available for sale by the glass at soda fountains. In 1909, under the Pure Food and Drug Act “the government thought Coca-Cola contained too much caffeine...In the end, Coca-Cola reduced the soda’s caffeine content by half.” (p. 20) This book makes no mention of Coca-Cola ever containing cocaine.

This book kept my attention, I couldn’t put it down! Coke is so familiar and yet its history is so unknown.

Contains: Timeline, Catchphrases, Glossary, Websites, and Index.

Ricky and his robot buddy are inseparable, and have been late for dinner too many times. As punishment, they are not allowed to watch TV that evening. This turns out to be good fortune because on planet Venus, Victor Von Vulture produced a spell and sent it through the television hypnotizing everyone to obey the Voodoo Vultures. The vultures were ordering everyone to bring them all their food. Have no fear, Ricky and his Mighty Robot are here to battle “flip-o-rama” style. The reader gets to flip through a few pages to view the action. The illustrations are bold, colorful and bright. This is a great beginner reader chapter book

Ricky is so happy to have a new flying friend in the Mighty Robot! Ricky didn’t have to worry about bullies anymore, and his robot could even help him with his homework. However, on planet Mercury, Mr. Mosquito made a swarm of mutant mosquitoes to take over the planet earth. Have no fear, Ricky and his Mighty Robot are here to battle “flip-o-rama” style. The reader gets to flip through a few pages to view the action. The illustrations are bold, colorful and bright. This is a great beginner reader chapter book.

Ricky is a little mouse who has no friends and has bullies bothering him all the time. In a secret cave, Dr. Stinky created a Mighty Robot to use to rule the world. When the robot entered the playground at Ricky’s school, Dr. Stinky ordered the robot to destroy the city, but the robot refused to hurt anyone. Ricky helped destroy the robot’s remote controller, and the Mighty Robot and Ricky became good friends. However, Dr. Stinky made an over-sized lizard to destroy the robot. The lizard and the robot battled, but in the end, Ricky’s Robot saved the day. The final battle is demonstrated in “flip-o-rama” style. The reader gets to flip through a few pages to view the action. The illustrations are bold, colorful and bright. This is a great beginner reader chapter book.

This compilation of seven stories are all are based on the theme of a doorway. Some of the stories are mysterious, some of them are thought provoking with unique twists.Each story is approximately 16 pages and represents the works of the following authors: Kazu Kibuishi, Jason Caffoe, Jen Wang, Faith Erin Hicks, Steve Hamaker, and Johane Matte. Bold illustrations are in full color and have been created by the individual authors.

Mr. Putter and Tabby is a spinoff of the Henry and Mudge series, popular with beginning readers.  In this edition, Mr. Putter and Tabby, his cat, his neighbor Mrs. Teaberry and her dog Zeke, go to the public library for story time in which you read to your pet.  Bringing their pets with them was a great idea and the story time was a success.  Simple story, no conflict.

Tony Baloney has the best of intentions of getting along with his older sister, but she drives him crazy when he is helping to clean up.  She feels the need to tell him exactly what to do.  He has an accident with the glitter, which causes an argument, which causes their parents to ground them, which causes them to miss a big school event that night, one that they had both been looking forward to.  After some grumbling and sibling revenge, they learn to work together and make up.  This is a good-feeling story, especially how Tony Baloney has his favorite stuffed animal whom he talks to and who talks back, which is shown in blue type.  It’s also great to see kids excited about going to school for Books and Buddies.  Plus the kids make up on their own.  There are lots of good things in this small book.