“Therapy dogs help people, mainly through visits and temporary companionship… The simple presence of  a dog in the room often lifts the spirits of people and makes them more active in the surroundings.” (page 5)

This 32 page book is broken up into 4 short chapters: A Comforting Presence, Becoming a Team, On the Job, and Off Duty.

Therapy dogs are often distinguished by wearing a special vest or bandana, but they are not service dogs, which are more highly trained. Small and medium sized dogs of no particular breed, who are able to follow basic commands, work well with their handler, and display calmness are the usual candidates for this job, though bigger dogs sometimes qualify, as well. Therapy dogs provide both animal-assisted activities with large groups and animal-assisted therapy with smaller groups.

Therapy dogs are almost a No-Brainer for making people feel good, if the person enjoys dogs in the first place. The joy dogs can elicit is beneficial to a person’s health.

The photos of over twenty therapy dogs throughout this book drive home this point.

Tippy Tinkletrousers has traveled back in time again to undo the trouble he created by changing the past. Now, he has traveled forward in time and is chasing George and Harold to get his revenge on them. George and Harold decide to use their own time machine, the Purple Potty, to return their pet dinosaur to the past so Tippy Tinkletrousers won’t hurt it. By mistake Mr. Krupp, AKA, Captain Underpants is also transported back in time.  Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth through time they go. Harold and George see dinosaurs, meet cave people, and draw the first ‘comic book’ on the  cave wall to help them communicate with the cave people.  The cave people help George and Harold defeat the evil Tippy Tinkletrousers. While in the past Tippy is responsible for the Ice Age and the Big Bang Theory. Too bad Harold and George’s teacher doesn’t believe a word of this when they use their first hand information on their Science Test once they get back to the present.

Captain Underpants fans will enjoy this 10th epic novel with its two flip-o-ramas and George and Harold’s two comic books.

Librarians will enjoy the sturdy binding and heavier(than paperback’s) paper.

The book starts in the early 1600’s, as the founder of the publishing house of Letterford, Miles Letterford, creates a puzzle hiding original works by Shakespeare, intended to be found by future heirs.  Zoom forward to today.  Mull Letterford is now the president of the publishing house and his second cousin is breathing down his neck trying to take over the business.  Odd things have been happening and business has been poor for Letterford’s.  If Mull isn’t able to sign contracts with writers to publish three new books by December 24, the company goes to his cousin.  What Mull doesn’t know is that his cousin has hired some shady characters to destroy his changes.  Mull’s daughter, Coly, and his other cousin, Julian, collaborate to solve the puzzle that’s in the portrait of Miles Letterford.  For almost four hundred years, no one has been able to figure out where the family treasure is hidden, or even what the family treasure is.  It comes down to a race against time as the deadline nears.  There are almost two parallel stories here: one of the clues and the hunt that follows and the second one the disasters that befall Mull.  Both are interesting and funny.  This was a very enjoyable book and I hope it is the first of many to follow.

In this sequel to The Apothecary, Meloy has continued the story with Benjamin, his father, Janie and Pip, but now the kids are the apprentices to the apothecary.  The last book ends with Benjamin giving Janie and her parents and Pip a celebration drink which erased their memories of the last three weeks.  Benjamin also took Janie’s diary in which she had meticulously recorded the events of each day.  Pip becomes a well known actor in England and no longer needs to steal to support himself.  Benjamin and his father have gone to the jungles of Viet Nam in the midst of the beginning of the war, and work thanklessly to save the Vietnamese people from both their wounds and the jungle.  Janie goes back to the U.S. with her parents, however, her parents go to Michigan to work and Janie goes to boarding school in New Hampshire.  Janie is an excellent and serious student who excels in the sciences.   As time passes, traces of her memory from her time with the apothecary begin to return, and she works on an experiment she’s remembering in which you can remove the salt from ocean water and make it drinkable.  Her roommate’s father, Mr. Magnusson, is a wealthy businessman who pays an inordinate amount of attention to Janie and her work, to the exclusion of his own daughter.  Janie’s roommate, in a jealous rage,  finds ways to get Janie expelled from school, thereby halting her science experiment before it is done.  Eventually Mr. Magnusson kidnaps Janie and coerces her to finish her work.  Meanwhile, Benjamin and Pip learn of her disappearance and come to her aid.  Each chapter flips from one character and their problem to the next, giving the illusion it’s all happening at the same time.  The action is non-stop and the book is a real page-turner.  If you enjoyed The Apothecary, you’ll be sure to enjoy The Apprentices.

This nonfiction books gives information about past and present (Sochi 2014) Winter Olympics.  The books has various sections which focus on the problems of the games, such as snowfall, and tragic accidents, and controversy.

In the back is information about the current Olympics in Sochi, Russia and that it is the first time for Russia to host the event.  The Winter Olympic Fact tile is in the back, along with  a map, glossary and websites and books.

Recommended.

The Quick Fix is a novel about kids in middle school, but there are no adults, teachers, parents, present.  The school operates within the boundaries of various groups of kids:  Vincent Biggio, aka Vinny Biggs, is like a mafia boss.  He gets stuff for you, fixes stuff for you, does stuff for you–all at a price.  If you don’t pay, his goons will get you.  He has also figured out a way to get students shunned from everyone at school and make their lives miserable.  The cheerleaders are all beautiful and boys will do anything they want and girls want to be just like them.  The athletes are the stars of the school and have their own bunch of groupies.  The terrible twins have the corner on pixie stix and work on kids’ addictions.  The hall monitors are like the police–they love to write you up.  Throw in a wannabe journalist who’s sniffing for a juicy story and a couple of nerds, and you have Franklin Middle School, commonly called ‘The Frank.’  There is also a student, a boy, who cannot be pigeonholed into any of these categories.  He’s like a detective and has clients for whom he works.  He is a puzzle solver, a mystery solver, who doesn’t do anything that will hurt himself or others and isn’t afraid to stand up to others regardless of threats.  He always seems to do the right thing.  He is very funny and likeable, and reminds me alot of the character Myron Bolitar in Harlen Coben novels.  This book has a lot of action and humor, and just when you think you know whats going on, Ferraiolo throws in some other tidbit for you to ponder.  Kind of also reminiscent of  Chris Rylander’s The Fourth Stall series.  Kids will love it!

Graphic Novel
Four short episodes with villains,  heroes,  Jedis,  Jabba,  Aurra Sing and Obi Wan Kenobi. Stories of battles and run away battle droids.
Star War fans will quickly snatch up this book.

Photographs, short informative text and a scare factor rating (1 scared face icon is a little bit scary all the way to 5 icons which is totally terrifying) will make this a top favorite for students. Scary things include: the Grand Canyon glass skywalk, the CN Tower, aliens, cliffs of Moher, mummy tombs and ghosts, to name just a few. Small blocks of information make it easy to pick up and read non-sequentially and skim over items that the reader may have little interest in. However, the layout makes this a highly engaging book, so I’m am not sure that much, if any, information will be skipped over.

Rocky and Daisy are Owen’s dogs. They do everything together.This year they are going to go camping with Owen and his parents. The family sings in the van as they drive to the camping spot. Owen and the dogs will be sleeping in a tent, play in the water at the beach, play with a ball, go hiking and gathering firewood, before cooking hot dogs over the fire.Thunder in the night scares Rocky and Daisy, so Owen takes the dogs and himself to sleep with his parents inside the van. The End.

Melinda Melton Crow has truly captured a trip to go camping. AND Mike Brownlow’s illustrations are charming and energetic.

Total word count = 432.