Memories of driving cross state over the mountain passes of Washington came to mind while reading this book.

Trucker ( a semi-truck loaded with a shipping container) is full of himself.” Trucker was bigger and stronger and tougher than anyone else on the road.”(4) The mopeds, cars, and pick-up trucks all give him a wide berth. Then one day, Trucker makes his first trip over mountains. New road, new views, and new experiences. Trucker sees his first freight train. Trucker is impressed by the number of cars Train carries, but does not like the way everyone admires Train.

Trucker tries racing Train, but Train gets the right-of-way. Trucker finally pulls ahead when Train stops at the station. Trucker starts up another mountain pass. The mopeds, cars, and pick-up trucks can pass Trucker on this uphill grade, under his heavy load. As Trucker rests at the top of the pass, he notices the train gate is broken off down in the valley. Trucker zooms into action to speed past the mopeds, cars, and pick-up trucks on the downhill grade to stop the traffic at the train crossing since the train grate arm is broken. Trucker blocks the train crossing, also, blocking the other vehicles view. They are not happy. Once Train goes speeding through the intersection the other vehicles cheer for Trucker who kept them safe. “And Trucker started off, along with the others, happy to share the road.” (32)

Photoshop at its fantasy finest. Matthew Rake along with illustrator Simon Mendez work their magic presenting ten “What If” scenarios of ancient beasts who suddenly appeared today.

” WARNING! These extinct beasts are not alive today, and the encounters seen in this book are not real. But just imagine if they were…”(4) Dimetrodon, Inostrancevia, Sarcosuchus, Quetzalcoatlus, Ambulocetus, Andrewsarchus, Entelodont, Phorusrhacid, Smilodon, and Hyaenodon are each individually presented as if they were alive today and matched up with a present day animal in an illustration that looks look it was taken with a camera.”Now can you imagine what might happen if they arrived back in today’s world? Well, you are about to find out…” (6) The script goes on to mention the pair briefly before moving exclusively to the prehistoric animal. The information on these prehistoric nondinosaurs makes the book worth purchasing, while the past versus present aspect makes the book catch the reader hook, line, and sinker. A few of the matches are off a bit like the Quetzalcoatlus which only lived in North America and they have it pictured with giraffes in the wild, but I’m sure the young reader will forgive this. Each prehistoric animal is given a side bar with its name pronunciation, where it lived, length, weight, and a black outline drawing of the animal standing beside a human to show its relative size.

If nothing else, the photos are eye catching!

Video game players of HELLO NEIGHBOR just might want to know the background story behind their video game.

Here goes. Nicky’s family moves around a lot because newspaper editors (Nick’s father) are going the way of the print newspaper copy. It is summer when they move to Raven Brooks. Nick meets Aaron, the boy living across the street by reading notes Aaron posts in his upstairs bedroom window. They soon meet and begin playing pranks on the town together.

Little by little, Nick learns about Raven Brooks’ closed amusement park and the tragic death of a little girl there. Aaron’s father, Mr. Peterson, was the engineer who designed the park. Mr. Peterson was famous for designing amusement parks from around the world. Strange accidents soon began happening in the parks Mr. Peterson designed.

As the clues fall into place Nick will realize , “Maybe two kids with a bunch of missing pieces don’t make each other whole–the perfect machine with all its parts in place. Maybe they just empty each other out more.” (196)

Aaron’s father will tell Nick not to come back to their house. Later, by way of notes, Nick tells Aaron, “IT’S OK IF YOU ‘RE NOT OK.” (202) and Aaron tells Nick, “I make bad things happen.” (206)

My third grade friend who has played HELLO NEIGHBOR stated, “If you like the game, you’ll like the book.”

Love being in the great outdoors? This book will inspire the reader to trek in the Mojave and/or Colorado Deserts of Southern California in the Joshua Tree National Park established in 1994. The book is filled with photos, photo insets, graphs, charts, and maps dealing with the animal and plant wildlife, history, and activities concerning this national park. Even more information is given on this and other national parks in the online reference given through www.factsfornow.scholastic.com , keyword Joshua Tree on page 45.

Joshua Tree National Park has six mountain ranges, two deserts, oases, old gold and silver mines, many nocturnal animals, plus desert bighorn sheep, rattlesnakes, Costa hummingbirds, desert tortoise, numerous different cacti, creosote bush, sand verbena, desert willow, palm tree, and of course, the Joshua Tree.

On top of all that, “Joshua Tree is an International Dark Sky Park. That means the darkness at night is complete and stargazing is magnificent.” (37)

In 1863, Magdalys and her friends from the Colored Orphan Asylum in New York City are on their way south to find Magdaly’s brother, Montez, who has been injured in battle. It is thought that Montez is in New Orleans.

The civil war is raging as the Dactyl Hill Squad fly south on pterodactyls from New York City through Tennessee and on to New Orleans in Louisiana. Along the way they are shot at, meet Generals Sheridan and Grant, see the destruction of war up close, learn there are other dinotalkers on both sides of the war- some better than Magdalys, and feel the pressure of war. “Sometimes what you love and what you have to do don’t get along.” (122) Magdalys feels she should stay and help General Sheridan form an air corp with her dactyls, but she needs to find her injured brother, too. How can such pressure be placed on a twelve year old?

At Chickamauga the battle does not go well for the Union forces. General Sheridan asks Magdalys to fly to New Orleans to tell General Grant about their situation. Even though this is where Magdalys wants to go, the war will not make it an easy flight. They run into Confederate flyers. Magdalys may be the heroine of this story, but that does not mean she and her friends get out of this unscathed.

The children are hardened by war, needing to act as adults, and yet they are still children. Oh, how their lives have been changed forever in so short a time.

Real people, places, and events are expertly mixed with fictional people, events, and dinosaurs to make this one high flying tale.

Ellie May wants to the class flag leader but she hasn’t been picked yet. She sets her sights on being the class flag leader on President’s Day. This books follows along has Ellie May plots and plans ways to get her teacher’s attention. After many distractions and mishaps, perhaps now is the time for Ellie to be picked.

Lottie has a secret that no one knows. Lottie takes swim lessons but she never enters the pool. Along comes Walter and he helps Lottie realized that she does have courage.

Nugget convinces Fang to attend Mini Minnows Elementary school with him. Fang isn’t comfortable at school. He wants nothing more than to go home. Then the teacher ask Fang to share with the class. Fang couldn’t think of anything to share until he spotted Nugget.

SumoKitty is about a stray kitty that is looking for food and warm home. He follows Sumo wrestles home. When he proves his worth by catching a mouse, he earns his place. Over time he gets fat and the mice come back but he is out of shape. The sumo wrestlers teach SumoKitty patience and moves to catch the mice.

In this book, the author included the Japanese words for the wrestling moves.