Author, Helen Gregory, presents an easy to understand early physics science book which supports national science standards. It enjoyment all begins, with the smiling mother pushing her smiling daughter on a swing pictured on the book’s front cover. Often the  photos in these small 7″ x 6″ books are mediocre, but not so with this book. The photos accompanying each single line of  text are well composed and specific for the material being presented.   The information on the left hand page denotes a ‘pull’ and on the right hand page it denotes a ‘push’.

And so it begins, “A force moves things. You can move things with a push or a pull.” (p.4-5) The photos include a bathroom water faucet being pulled down to stop the flow and a door knob being pushed to open a door.  The ‘push’ pages include: moving a wooden toy box, ringing a doorbell, moving a shopping chart, and piano keys. “You push a ball when you hit it with a bat.”  (. 13)  The ‘pull’ pages include: pulling a snow sled up a hill, pulling a toy red wagon, pulling on a shoe, and playing tug-a-war. “You pull a bow across violin strings.” (p. 14)

Students may miss it, but on page 19 under the heading – NOW TRY THIS! there is a suggested activity for children to try, “Think of something you do everyday that is either a push or pull. Act out your example for the class. See if your classmates can guess what the activity is. Then let them decide if the activity involves a push or a pull- or both.” (p. 19)

Author, Adria F. Klein, presents a color concept book for very young readers using 81 words. Craig Cameron’s bright, cheery illustrations of the circus train are a perfect match with the circus animals all happily smiling .

As the circus train pulls into town each train car is a different color, “There were elephants in the gray car.” (p. 18-19) The yellow car has the lions, orange car has the tigers, the brown car has the bears, the red car has the monkeys, the white car has the dogs, and the black car has the horses in it. What could be in the last rainbow swirled train car? ” The clowns! ‘Time for fun!’ said Circus Train.”  (p. 28-31)

Mr. Mouse runs a motel all by himself. This makes for quite a bit of work when his motel is booked for a convention in town. Mr. Mouse is run ragged helping his guests with their luggage and room service: getting ice, extras pillows, food, helping with the TV remote, and more, for nine times in all. Soon Mr. Mouse is too tired to answer the phone. “The guests come to the lobby to see what is wrong. They see Mr. Mouse. They know they have to help.” (p. 17)

Peter Lubach’s humorous illustrations,  like a giraffe needing quite a few extra pillows and a polar bear fanning himself while he waits for a bucket of ice to arrive make this book enjoyable.

Page 24 lists three comprehension questions under the heading “Big Questions” and there is a small Common Core Connection box on the back cover of the book.

As Katie Woo works out what she will write her research paper on for school, there are “Katie’s Star Tips” at the bottom of 7 pages. These tips include information on brainstorming, sources, note cards, and revisions among other things.

Katie compares what she is learning about her topic of butterflies with the factoids her friends are learning about their topics of whales and airplanes.

Katie’s first draft is shown with its “spelling mistakes, but she could fix those later.” (p. 24) Her final paper is also shown with its revisions and Katie is excited about beginning research for her next paper on dogs.

Prior to the glossary page, there is a full page image of a handwritten sheet of notebook paper listing five ideas for research papers the readers might like to attempt themselves.

This is one of four Dino Detectives books for young readers.

“Dot [the Diplodocus]  is excited. It is her last day of swim lessons. She thinks she finally passed level one.” And the clues begin: mom baking, dad talking about balloons, brother mowing the lawn, and none of her friends are home. Dot writes down the clues before going to swim lessons. When Dot gets back there is no one around with which to share her big news. Then she spots and follows a trail of popcorn out to the back yard where a surprise party awaits for her swimming success.

Steve Harpster’s illustrations are cute, if not hilarious. Imagine a giant lavender diplodocus riding a small pink child’s bicycle. Or a diplodocus searching through her house for her family, where the house looks like a maze from an aerial view.

Chris Eliopoulos’s writing and illustration will make or break this book for you. His writing is very fluid and the dialogue, while not necessarily natural, is very delightfully playful and amusing. The illustration, on the other hand, is very natural and reminds me of the illustration from “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” which is always a fun read for kids. Comparing it to “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” though, I would consider the illustration in this book to be much more entertaining and evocative with a lot of little humorous details hidden in the background and a very good grasp on portraying action with such a limited style.

I did say that there could be some things that could “break” this book for you, though. Firstly, I’ll consider the relatively minor issue: the illustration. While the illustration is very fun to look at and finely detailed (at least for this particular art style), I don’t feel like the characters in the story are very memorable.This simply means that I would jump on anything written by Chris Eliopoulas, but I don’t see your kids waiting for the next Mr. Puzzle book. I have a feeling this is going to be a book that you would have to suggest to your kids to read or do a reading for them with a projector.

The much bigger issue is the writing and content of the writing. The comedic stylings makes me feel like this is targeted at grades 2-6, but there seem to be some questionable moral underpinning and the overall moral of each story is pretty vague. For example, there is a portion of the book where a kid has to get 100% on a quiz and the kid states that he is the only one in the school that can pull this off. While I like that the kid takes pride in his intelligence, I found it odd that we portray this kid as being alone in the school and not having other intelligent peers. It seems to encourage the sense of intelligence and superiority over others instead of encouraging cooperation with peers. Another example is when a group of women ogle Mr. Puzzle and say he’s a “real man’s man,” and the narrator later refers to the admirers as “lovely ladies.”  For this age group, I could see such dialogue to be a bit inappropriate, but not so much so that I would say it was bad. Just that you should be aware of the content before finding out who the book is appropriate for.

Additionally, and this is another double-edged sword, there are some words that I wouldn’t expect a young reader to know or really need to know, yet the rest of the writing is fairly simple and easy to read. As a result, I think 2nd or 3rd graders might have a hard time with such a book, but I think it makes this book wonderful for readers in later grades that are behind in their skills but are more mature. The writing and comedy could appeal to a broad audience and I think reading it out loud opens it up for all grades, but I think this book is best used as a beginner’s book for the higher grades, like 5th and above. The best part is that there are some words in here that are High School-level, like “polyvinyl acetate,” that will provoke the reader to ask for help. In a small reading group, I could imagine a short book like this being very helpful and efficient in getting your students interested and engaged.

submitted by T. Kalen Owens

Very interesting illustrations and photos tell the story of what can be found underground.  Everything from buried clay soldiers in Asia, to hidden tunnels and living quarters during wartime, subways, waterlines, etc.  This will surely engage the curious learners with lively discussion and great visuals.  Very nice addition.

This is actually a compilation of three separate books, placed into one.  The text and illustrations will draw the reader in, whether independent or with an adult and follow the interesting hands-on activities which shed light on the practicality of applied math, and the abundance of it around us in everything.  Well written, students, children, teachers, adults will all enjoy this bounty!  Recommended.