“Freedom from fear is a basic human right… Intelligence agents play a key role in securing this freedom for all Americans.”  (p.7) Before reading this five chapter book with a skeletal* amount of information I didn’t know much , if anything, about the United States national intelligence system. It is so full of secrets, the general public only knows of its failures.

There are 16 separate agencies, with 200,000 employees spending $75 million / yr. on intelligence each year. Few of these employees are spies.

There are 5 steps in the Intelligence Cycle: 1) planning, 2) collecting information, 3 & 4) processing and analyzing , 5) delivery of intelligence to President.  “The IC [Intelligence Cycle] relies on analysts to make sense of the information it gathers.” ( p. 36)  Not all the information gathered makes it past the processing and analyzing due to its  inaccuracy, being incomplete, or being outdated.

Chapter 5 discusses the controversies associated with some of the methods used in collecting intelligence, such as – waterboarding.

Includes: Map of Events – What Happened Where?, The Story Continues – New Threats, Influential Individuals, Timeline, Living History*, Glossary, and Index.

* more information at www.factsfornow.scholastic.com   keywords National Intelligence

The Great Depression of the 1930s is underway when Herbert Hoover’s dream to build a hydroelectric dam on the Colorado River is finally realized. Out of work men from California, Nevada, and Texas are a major part of the 21,000 workers employed for the dam’s construction. They arrive to find NO town, desert heat, and NO water supply.

The unnamed main character is one of the many employed unskilled workers. His facial expressions amplify and personalize the hardships of: dysentery, muddy drinking water, ditch latrines,  living in a tent city in desert heat and freezing cold, and the dangers from blasting rock.

Amidst the graphics of the construction work there is an easily understandable diagram of how the water gets to the turbines to generate the power.

Author Maggie Rosier provides insight into the skill of drawing 8 different robots illustrated by Steve Porter.

The beginner should start by drawing from a picture before drawing from their imagination. Basic supplies include drawing pencils with both soft (B) and hard (H) lead, in addition to colored pencils, paper, eraser, and black ink pen.

Drawing each robot is broken down into 5 steps beginning with the rudimentary basic key shapes, secondary shapes / appendages,  robot specific appendages/ gadgets,  fine detail, and finally shading and coloring.

Each robot is introduced with a mini-bio description of its different skills, abilities, attributes, and how body follows function.

Along the way, insets provide tips: go from light to dark, highlights, break it down to basic shapes, and test color combinations before coloring actual drawing.

Includes: glossary, index, and www.factsurfer.com.

These fairy tales are not too long, not too short, they’re just right! Seven fairy tales are retold and illustrated by London born and Liverpool School of Art trained Tony Ross. Ross’ pencil and paint strokes are simple, if not crude, yet the movement and emotions are well defined!

Of Ross’  seven favourite  fairy tales, I was only familiar* with three of them: The Hedley Kow, The Musicians of Bremen*, Sweet Porridge, Rumpelstiltskin*, Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, Fairy Gifts, and Beauty and the Beast*. The stories’ length averages 10-14 pages long with the ratio of picture to text often 1:1 or greater.

I particularly enjoyed the characters not retelling their story numerous times by the narrative stating “the girl explained”.