This is a strange story about a child and his/her father going to an imaginary fair.  The pictures make the story.  They are rather flat and geometric looking, but full of fun things to discover.

The story seems sort of slow, and boring, and disjointed.  It is like something a third grader wrote.  Maybe it lost something in the translation, but I found it to be uninteresting, with no real story line.  It just sort of wanders around the fair.

This is a cute, fun story.  It has a great lesson at the end, with a rather fun twist.  It emphasizes gratitude, and being polite to people who give you gifts.

The pictures are great, and the font is large and easy to read.  This would be a good read for young readers.

Dirty Bertie is a cross of Dennis the Menace and Pig Pen from the Charlie Brown gang in the Peanuts comic strip, created by author Alan MacDonald and illustrator David Roberts. This book contains three independent stories of four chapters each: Worms!, Manners! , and Garbage!

In the first story – WORMS!, Bertie is invited to Angela’s pink party for her 6th birthday. How can he go to the party, even though he loves parties, when he is expected to wear pink and most likely he will be the only boy?! Bertie fakes memory loss to get out of going to the pink party, but his mother won’t let him forget. Then,  Bertie zips himself up inside his sister’s pink mummy-style sleeping bag to go to the pink party dressed as an earthworm. He even rolled in the dirt for authenticity.

In the second story – MANNERS!     “In Bertie’s opinion, manners were a total waste of time. But that was before he heard about the prize.” (page 48) “Tomorrow … is National Manners Day” and Bertie plans to win the prize. “Even if it meant he had to be polite for a whole day, he didn’t care. After all, how hard could it be?” ( page 53)  Will Bertie be able to be polite for the entire day at school?  I won’t tell, you’ll have to read this charming book for yourself.

AND remember the dirt in this book is all illustration, especially the earthworms and dirt splots inside the from and back covers.

Recycling projects are presented to the reader by way of activities, demonstrations, models, and experiments they can do themselves or with the help of an adult. The five chapters cover: 1) Plastics and Recycling with 5 activities; 2) Solid Waste and Decomposition with 6 activities; 3) The Greening of Waste with 5 activities;  4) More Things to Recycle with 6 activities;  and 5) What Can You Do? with 9 activities ( an error has 5.8 & 5.9 both labeled 5.8 within the chapter itself). Each chapter’s activities, demonstrations, models, and experiments have: a clear list of the materials needed, a step by step set of directions with accompanying questions to help guide their observations, and Ideas for Science Fair Projects without telling the reader what the expected outcome will be. The book does not ever give the reader the answers to the questions. If the reader truly wants to know the outcome they will need to follow the easy concise directions.

Most chapters include some interesting historical information as to when or why different recycling practices came about.

This is the perfect book for teachers and students alike who want to celebrate the Earth we live on or just Earth Day.

Includes- Appendix: Science Supply Companies, Further Reading with books and web sites, and Index.

I have to admit, when I picked this book up, I was not expecting much from the chibiesque art style. But this is Super Friends, so I tried to look past that. I am so glad I did. While this might be the book with the youngest target audience, the dialogue never makes a habit of talking down to the reader. The writer lets the plot handle the moral of the story about the importance of teamwork, instead of making lengthy lectures about the “lesson we learned today.” The dialogue, instead, is spent learning about each character’s weaknesses and strengths along with some clever joke and hi jinks. While I am not a fan of the art style in general, the facial expressions and artistic portrayal of emotion, as well as the lighthearted but exciting action makes for a masterful interpretation of the medium. Overall, a very good book and it might just be one of the best to introduce your kid to the DC Universe.

Includes: Visual Questions & Prompts  for discussion.

submitted by T. K. Owens

This book is full of interesting information about dolphins.  It covers dolphins from oceans and rivers all over the world.  I was amazed with the board and detailed information in this book.

This is a great resource for children waiting to learn about these animals.

The book is interesting with facts boxed and nice color photo’s throughout.  The font is smaller, and the vocabulary more complex than early reader books.  This is a great resource book for older children.

This is a great book for kids wanting to learn to fly fish.  It introduces them to the equipment, skills, safety precautions, and vocabulary of fly fishing.  The book is full of pictures.  Some are of fish, people fishing, and equipment.  I would like to have seen pictures of all the kinds of flies/bait they mentioned.  The book only pictured dry flies.  I found the book very informative and interesting.  This is a nice addition to our outdoor sports books.

Wow! What an amazing and fascinating book!  It answers an assortment of questions from how night vision goggles work to how space soliets work.  The font in the book is large and easy to read, so readers can move through the different topics quickly.  This book holds the readers attention.

The pictures are colorful and great examples of each topic.

The book has a nice glossary of words that might be new to young readers.  This is a fun book for readers of all ages.

Penciled by Carlo Barberi, the art style used in this book [graphic novel] doesn’t seem to try and emulate the style from Justice League Unlimited, instead using the bold, black outlines, detailed and more realistic faces reminiscent of the animated series, Superman. The story seems to meander at points and doesn’t seem to have a lot of focus. Some of this is caused by periods of lengthy exposition. One thing the book does very well, though, is create a world for the reader. Some of the lengthy exposition is created as Adam Beechen shows the world and the new hero to the reader.This world and its hero are very well crafted.  Heroic Age and Walden Wong did a great job of bringing everything to life with bright colors and an utopian atmosphere. All in all, it’s a great book if you want to dive into something new and different series, but this departure from the norm does seem to take a toll on the focus of the story.

Includes: Visual Questions & Prompts  for discussion.

submitted by T. K. Owens

Admittedly, I am not familiar with the Young Justice series. That being said, the art style in this book [graphic novel] is amazing. Of the DC Comics books being published by Stone Arch Books, the Young Justice series seems to have the most “comic-like” style. The shading is very meticulous, using cross-hatching and other techniques, instead of just applying shades in post-processing.

The story is a bit disjointed, but this is largely due to the continuity of the story.  It is definitely a series that you will want to start from the beginning as there are some significant plot points that are references to other books. The content of the story is very solid as the characters explore their fears with an eloquent maturity. My only complaint is that the first two explorations of fear use an excessive amount of dialogue that would have been better explained visually. The closing exploration with Superboy, while much less complicated and intricate, does a much better job and closes the story beautifully.

A great addition to your library, but I recommend starting from the beginning.

Includes: Visual Questions & Prompts  for discussion.

submitted by T. K. Owens