The fourth book in the Karate Made Simple series, readers will learn about how karate got its start, how karate expanded, about major competitions, the Japan Karate Federation, karate in schools, and famous people from karate history. Large color photos are located on each page spread supporting the written details. This book includes a table of contents, an index, glossary, karate chronology, and website pages.

The third book in the Karate Made Simple series, readers will learn about a typical training routine, examples of warm-up and cool-down exercises, basic stationary stances, techniques about moving, sparring drills, spontaneous sparring, and details about karate competitions. Large color photos are located on each page spread showing step-by-step images of performance. Detailed instructions accompany each image. A respectable balance of gender is used. This book includes a table of contents, an index, glossary and website pages.

The second book in the Karate Made Simple series, readers will learn karate stances, how the hands and body become weapons, three punches, three strikes, four kicks, four blocks, and four kata (practice forms). Large color photos are located on each page spread showing step-by-step images of performance. Detailed instructions accompany each image. A respectable balance of gender is used. This book includes a table of contents, an index, glossary and website pages.

The first book in the Karate Made Simple series, readers will learn the karate students’ discipline of heart, mind, and body through practice and respect for their opponent. Also discussed in detail is the gi (uniform), belts and rank, protective gear, the dojo (the place where karate is practiced), and basics of the competition arena. Large color photos are located on each page spread. This book includes a table of contents, index, glossary and website pages.

Fourth grade crime fighter,  Jo Schmo, is ready to fight more crime after defeating Dr. Dastardly in Book #1, but “the bad guys must be taking a break…It happens.”  So Jo invents a time machine to travel back to the California Gold Rush of 1849, where outlaw Wyatt Burp is causing havoc with his Hole in the Head Gang. (They wanted to be the Hole in the Wall Gang, but that name was already taken.)  Jo and her sidekick dog- Raymond track Wyatt Burp down as he and his gang head out of town on a stolen sailing ship. Whenever Jo gets too close Wyatt burps them out of the way. Finally, Jo outsmarts Wyatt by replacing his sarsaparilla, which is Wyatt’s key he his gigantic powerful burps, with Raymond’s dog drool. That done, Jo flies Wyatt off to jail. Not wanting to stay in 1849, she and Raymond travel back to the present.

The reader is introduced to ordinary fourth grader, Jo Schmo, when suddenly Jo receives a red cape in the mail from Uncle George, who is retiring from being a superhero. “Use it well,” writes Uncle George. Grandpa Joe, who lives in the shack behind Jo’s house, helps trim the cape down to Jo’s ankles. The extra fabric lands on Jo’s dog, Raymond – Jo’s new sidekick! The cape’s instruction manual says “to fly” think lofty thoughts. After crashing several times, Jo gives up on flying for the time being. Jo is able to stop trains – “it’s all in the wrist” – permanently.

Enter Dr. Dastardly, who wants to bring dinosaurs back to life with his Re-animator Laminator, so he can take over San Francisco and then the world. Before meeting up with Dr. Dastardly, Grandpa Joe texts Jo (who is in school at the time) about a bank robbery happening at that very minute. Jo and Raymond leave school ( on a bathroom break) to try to stop it. The robbers get away. Jo catches the two bank robbers in ” ‘the longest bathroom break in U.S. history,’ said Mrs. Freep. ‘What did you do, fall in?’  ” (p. 54) After stopping several more crimes, Jo and Raymond meet up with Dr. Dastardly at the museum of natural history. They are able to stop the dinosaurs( Dr. Dastardly has brought to life) and Dr. Dastardly. As chapter 21 comes to a close, Jo has finally unraveled her ‘lofty’ thoughts and is able to fly. “Tomorrow there would be more problems to face in the city, more villains to catch, more crimes to stop, and Jo Schmo would be ready to face them. But for now, there was only one thing on her mind.           Sponge cake. (p. 105)      [It is lofty.]

Stay tuned for book #2 of The Adventures of Jo Schmo.

Flora, the farm pig, reminds me of another farm pig, Charlotte, in Charlotte’s Web.  Flora, however, is much more curious and adventurous.  She wants to see who and what’s out there in the big world.  She listens to what the cat and horse say, and practices techniques they use.  Through a series of mishaps, she ends up on board a ship bound for Antartica–she thinks she’s going to be trained as a sleddog, but the ship’s cook has other ideas.  She finds and aids friends, survives a crash and ends up in Antarctica, just what she wanted.  Through times that show her strength of character, her kindness and thoughtfulness, and sheer heroics, she becomes a sledpig and actually saves the expedition.  This is a beautiful story of someone seeking and making their own adventures while being a hero and a friend.  I would expect this book to become a classic.

This is book two of four graphic novels in the Supergirl series- comic adventures in the eighth grade.

Superman’s cousin- Linda Lee is an eighth grader at Stanhope Boarding School. Linda is trying to figure out how she fits into the scheme of things when in her school’s science geology lab Kyptonite is exposed and filtered through the light of an overhead projector.”ZZRREOOOAAAZZZ!” a dark haired duplicate of the blond (Linda) Supergirl pops into existence. The same, but opposite. Super villain. Version B or Belinda Zee proceeds to hang up campaign posters of Linda Lee for Class President “for an election that doesn’t exit!” Later, when Linda confides in Belinda in an attempt to become friends, Belinda secretly tape records the conversation, only to play the tape over the school’s P.A. system – embarrassing Linda. As Book #2 ends, Linda has made a friend with another new student – Lena Thorul. Unknown to Lena, her new friend Linda is cousin to Superman, who put her big brother in prison.

Includes five discussion questions in the section- Visual Questions and Prompts.

This graphic novel is set beneath the graveyard at Underworld Elementary School in Forever Fifth Grade, where everyone is dead.

Word play and bad jokes abound as Dedbert and Skully find their world falling in on them , as the graveyard above them is being bulldozed by order of the upper world’s city mayor.

“over my dead body…graveyard — it’s usually dead quiet… you don’t dig graveyards?… cross my heart and hope to live… grave situation… feel it in my bones… can’t just roll over and play dead.” are but a few of the phrases that will haunt/greet  the reader.

Includes – 5 ‘visual questions’.

Author Denise Downer “has written shows on today’s top networks, including Fox, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network.” And illustrator Otis Frampton “has illustrated many of today’s top properties, including Star Wars, The Avengers, Lord of the Rings, and more.”

When I think of sports- football, basketball, or baseball come to mind. BUT this book is set in Navajo Country where rodeo just may beat out all other sports.

Enthusiasm  for rodeo exudes from the pages of this book as each rodeo event is presented with a free-verse poem, a rodeo MC as he introduces each event, and a description of the event.  Includes: Grand entry, wooly rider, bronc riders, calf roper, barrel racer, steer wrestler, team roper, and bareback bull rider.

The photography which fills each page and the expressions on the participants faces captures their souls for that moment in time.