Flutter is a powerful story about sisterhood, survival, and love that I’m sure will stay with you for a long time!  As Mama prepares to have her baby, sisters Dawn, Maple, and Beetle all prepare to welcome baby sister Lily.  The story is told by middle sister Maple .  When Baby Lily arrives too early and with a heart that does not work quite right, Maple knows it’s up to her to find a miracle that will save Baby Lily.  In searching for “the miracle” sisters Dawn and Maple encounter real dangers and realize a thing or two about miracles..and about each other.  There is plenty of adventure in this book to hold the interest and attention of any reader.

The author, as a young boy, was always on the search for heroes like Babe Ruth, Leonardo da Vinci, Harry Houdini, etc.  However, his inspiration for this book came from Bob Dylan’s search for “his guiding star.”  Bob was raised in a mining town in Canada, where his Jewish family ran a business.  Since he neither wanted to mine or run a business, his passions kept drawing him to music, to the disappointment of his parents.  After being kicked off stage for being too loud at a school talent show, Bob was determined more than ever to “be a music star one day…even bigger than Elvis…and show them all.”  Inspired by Woody Guthrie, who could make people think and feel, Bob learned all of Woody’s songs and hundreds more.  He practiced so diligently that he could now rivet his audience.  When he heard that Woody was in the hospital, he went to see him.  He sang Woody’s songs and put a smile on that weak and tired face.  Their friendship opened many doors for Bob Dylan,  and the rest is history.  The accessible narrative is peppered with quotations from Dylan’s own writings, his biographies,  lyrics of songs, and interviews, all of which are notated in the Back Matter.  The Author’s Note ends with…”Finally, if we could all meet our heroes–even in our imagination–maybe we’d understand our own stories better and who we really want to be.”  Bright, bold illustrations in acrylic and oil  captivate the reader just as much as the story line.  All in all, a beautiful book!

Watercraft engineering becomes  the avenue for student inventors, scientists and artists to test their creative ideas with The Motorboat Book.  A myriad of concepts can be learned in a natural, hands-on way, such as buoyancy and density, chemical reactions, energy and energy  transformations, forces and motion, hydraulics, electric cirucits, just to name a few.  First, one needs an “ocean” in which to test the boats.  Contruction models for large, small and tiny oceans give the reader many options.  A variety of hulls are described , as well as 21 ways to propel that boat.  Pumps, to move water, submarines, projects suggestions round out the contents of this rich resource for  building motorboats.  Written in a “How To” format…materials needed and steps to take…prolific black and white photographs support the reader in following the instructions.  My only wish is that the photos were of higher quality, instead of fuzzy amateur snapshots…with poor lighting that, in a few cases, makes it even hard to  figure out what you are looking at.  I wanted this book for our collection because kids could get a lot of great ideas for their Science Fair projects.   And water play is universally fun!

This is a fasinating  book about robots.  The pictures are very fun to look at.  The book tells about the robots that are in space and what they are learning from them.  Robots can help us learn so much about the planets.  They can help repair a space station and much more.  There is much information in this book that it was

This is a good book that has great pictures.  There is a lot of great informative text that teaches about the stock cars.  There is a lot of explaining on how the cars are put together and transformed into race cars.  The book describes the tracks and the length and shape of tracks. There is a glossary in the back, and an index.  There is a table of contents in the front.

Jessie and Evan Treski are in the same 4th grade class together. Jessie, Evan’s overachieving sister, has decided to publish a school newspaper by Valentine’s day. Mysterious candy hearts with unique messages on them start to appear in students’ desks. The poetry assignment encourages Evan to write a secret poem about a girl in class. Jessie decides to survey the class about their crushes and is determined to publish all the secrets in her newspaper, unaware of how she could hurt everyone involved. This is an entertaining mystery. Each chapter starts with a word and its definition that pertains to the chapter it precedes. After the story the reader will find a copy of Jessie’s newspaper, a list of poetry terms and their definitions, and 10 poems. Fun read. This is book #4 of the Lemonade War Series.

The text in Sea Turtles contains many informative and easily read facts.  Words to know are in red and, although in the glossary, are often explained on the page.  The seven species of sea turtles are presented with clear, colorful photographs.  Occasional Fun Fact boxes provide additional information.  Physical characteristics, diet, habitat, behaviors, and distribution are described.  Other land turtles and tortoises are briefly mentioned.  Although sea turtles have been around more than 200 million years, their future is at risk without appropriate assistance from humans.  Global warming, lost habitats, and pollution are the biggest threats.  A map illustrating the range of sea turtle habitats is included in the back with the glossary, index, and sites to access additional facts for sea turtles, turtles, Galapagos turtles, fossils, and reptiles.  Citation information for these resources are also included.

Binky, the space cat, must train a new recruit.  The only problem is that this new cadet is a dog named Gordon.  When training appears to be ineffective, Binky and his superior, neighborhood cat Captain Gracie, suspect that Gordon is a double agent in the fight against aliens (flies).  Surveillance of Gordie’s actions in outer space (outdoors), leaving messages and dis-arming anti-alien devices, convince Binky that Gordie is a traitor.  The adventures of teaching this unmanageable recruit includes a bit of potty humor as this young pup learns routines.  Ultimately, Gordie proves himself to be a super alien fighter and a technological genius.  Ashley Spires’ monotone watercolor illustrations help tell this amusing adventure parody.

Mr. Green, a cookie-loving alligator, followed his nose to a freshly baked tray of cookies and discovered an odd note warning they were terrible.  This was strange because Mrs. Green always baked wonderful cookies!  After investigating the ingredients, he decided to taste one.  Delicious!  Then he wondered about the others.  Just as he finished the last one, Mrs. Green returned home.  She showed him how he had misread the note and told him she had doubled the recipe – and the rest were ready to bake.  Mr. Green began calculating how many cookies there would be if one kept doubling the recipe!  Bright, colorful acrylic artwork beautifully illustrates the text.  Originally published in 2006 as On the Go with Mr. and Mrs. Green, the new 2012 edition changed the title to Cookies.

This 6.25″ X 7.25 ” book is for having fun while  searching for jungle animals and plants hidden on darkened transparent plastic with the use of a punch-out  cardboard ‘torch’ [flashlight] found at the back of the book. As a school librarian, I have my doubts as to how long the torch will remain with the book, but have found a simple 1.5 X 7  inch strip of white paper will do the job, or even simply holding the plastic page in front of a window, will work.

I like that the book states, ” “Watch out. You would never see all the animals you will find in this book in one place, because they come from jungles all over the world.”

There are 6 plastic transparent pages on the right hand side for the reader to search for the animals and plants listed and roughly shown in a key on the opposite left hand page. The six transparent pages cover 5 jungle life zones with a sixth one on animal camouflage. The emergent treetop zone has 12 animals, the canopy has 15, the lower branches have 15, the undergrowth has 14, the river has 16, and the camouflage has 11 animals to find.

The book does not provide textual information on the animals to be found.