Lena Blackburne wanted to play baseball and become famous.  He played on many professional teams but was just an ordinary player.  He did, however, become famous.  As a coach, he learned that new baseballs were too shiny to throw and too hard to see.  Different methods used to break them in were unsatisfactory.  One day while fishing, he stepped into some soft, gooey mud that was slightly gritty.  He rubbed the mud on baseballs and let it dry.  When he rubbed it off, the baseballs had lost the shine and were not soft or smelly.  The “new” baseballs were easy to throw and see.  Lena Blackburne’s baseball mud mad him famous.  To this day, Lena’s mud is the only substance allowed on major-league baseballs.  Although Lena Blackburne never made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame, his mud did!  A short author’s note adds more information about the famous mud but not the secret to what makes it work.  Illustrations by Oliver Dominguez are large, colorful and depict the energy and emotions of the sport.

I remember the red poppies sold by Veterans ever since I was a child but did not know the significance of the flower.  After WWI, in France, thousands of soldiers who sacrificed their lives for freedom lay and each spring are covered in a blanket of red poppies.  Moina Michael was a patriotic professor at the University of Georgia, and near the end of WWI, determined to remember those fallen heroes, made the red poppy the ‘miracle flower’, a remembrance of those who were gone.  Veterans for decades have sold the flowers near Veterans and Memorial Days, the proceeds going towards helping veterans and their families.  Sadly, after reading this book, I looked online for more information about Moina Michael and on a website from the UK found almost the whole story verbatim that was written in this book.

Well, Albert Pujols is a good-looking guy, born in the Dominican Republic and plays terrific baseball.  That’s all this book tells you.  Since Pujols is a current major-leaguer, I don’t mind having this book on the shelf.  However, guys this good usually earn mega bucks.  So what does Pujols do with all that money?  Most guys have a foundation or charity or kids club they are involved in, but there is no mention at all of anything personal about Pujols in this book.  Not one single personal factoid.  Usually guys like this are role models for kids, but what has he done other than play baseball.  Also, a minor gripe, but a separate caption mentioned that lots of boys growing up in the Dominican Republic play baseball–couldn’t you have included a map to show where DR is located?

The youngest in your school will immediately recognize that Eddie does NOT know how to get ready for school.  This book pretty much illustrates all the things you’re not supposed to do on a school morning.  Great conversation starter for parents.

Woodstock is part of the Peanuts gang, and in this book, Woodstock and his friends are out camping with Snoopy as their scout leader.  Snoopy is going to teach his scouts survival skills, but no skills are here, only humor.  Kind of dorky, but the illustrations are priceless.  In my mind, I made up a better story to go along with the colorful illustrations than what was printed.  Kids will enjoy looking at the pictures.

This book seems to have been written by two different people.  I say that because the first part of the book is about how Tara and her talking kitten are taken by fairy friends to meet a mermaid, who then takes them to meet creatures from under the sea.  She finds out that they are angry about how people/humans are polluting their waters and killing them and want Tara to do something about it.  Then there are some silly shenanigans that don’t have anything to do with or add to the story.  Tara gives a report at school about the ocean and how important it is to keep it clean and gets her classmates excited about it.  The other chapters are small separate stories about how Tara and her fairy friends help to keep her friend from drowning and how she helps an elderly neighbor connect with her family.  The whole book was rather disjointed and all over the place.  The messages were purposeful and clear: keep our water clean, be honest, help our neighbors and the elderly.  Little girls more into fairies and such rather than good writing will read this.

Not too many people, other than Brits, use the word horrid anymore, but we could say ‘Horrible Henry,’ and kids would understand.  Henry is a real stinker but in the first chapter, he wonders what would happen if he were perfect, like his brother, Peter.  The results are hilarious!  In the following chapters, we find out how Henry gets his way by being really horrible.  Kids will think it’s hilarious, but I hope it doesn’t give them ideas.  A great beginning reading book.

BOM! went the bear, playing a big bass drum!  And along comes monkey, turtles, giraffes, frogs, elephants, and so on.  Everyone wants to join in the music parade, which doesn’t make bear so happy.  Parts of the book have a melody or rhythm from the words, but there are breaks and it makes it hard to pick back up.  It would take practice to have kids join in with the sounds, but they would enjoy making the loud and soft sounds and other different sounds as shown in this book.

Dressing up is fun!  All little kids love to pretend to be a grown-up ‘something’.  In this story, Little Hippo pretends to be Doctor Hippo and he goes around to all the jungle animals pretending to check them over.  Crocodile snapped at him, hyena was ticklish, elephant sneezed on him, and lion scared him.  Maybe it isn’t so fun being grown up, he thought.  This is definitely a ‘feel good’ story as Little Hippo goes home and mom makes everything better.  This is a terrific book to read at bedtime.

Fairy Marie is tiny, somewhat like Thumbellina, and lives on a red poppy flower.  Her friends are also tiny and, together, they are preparing for fall.  The illustrations in this book are absolutely spectacular and I find myself studying the lacy insect wings and butterfly wings as well as all the humanistic qualities of these tiny creatures.  The story, originally written in Dutch, has been translated into English and occasionally seems a little awkward.  But that easy to overlook because of the beautiful illustrations.  Marie needs to find a new house for winter, but finds a home and friends and family, as well.  Heartwarming.  Kids into fairies will love it!