This book is set in late winter 1955 in a small farming community in South Dakota.  As winter progressed, extreme weather set in with repeated heavy snowstorms which closed roads and stranded families on their farms.  The main characters are composed of one such farming family with three girls ranging in age from middle school to high school, dad and pregnant mom.  The book is a delightful and exciting snapshot of their lives during these winter-time challenges.  Themes of family, perseverance, patience, hard work, friendship, helping others and coming of age are all prevalent.  I enjoyed this novel set in more innocent times and will recommend it to my students.

Photos of Veterans Day celebrations tell the story as much as the text does in this book. Parades, speeches, school visits by soldiers in uniform, and flowers on graves of veterans and at memorials are some of the ways we thank our veterans for keeping us ‘free and safe’ on this day in their honor.

Includes: What you can do-an activity, Learn More, and web sites.

Father Ghost is coaxed into telling Franny and Frankie a bedtime story. One story becomes two, and then three. Each story has a twist of a scary ending.

The Haunted “Hamburger had two round eyes as green as pickles… a wide, squiggly mouth as yellow as mustard… [and] wet bloody cheeks as red as ketchup.”

These three tricky stories are a Halloween treat for their readers.

Paul Meisel’s wide-eyed ghost children with dark circles around their shallow sleepy eyes are a delight.

Little Ollie, the gosling, and his siblings dress-up for Halloween and wander around the farm on a dark windy night before eating treats of cracked corn.

Soft earth-tone drawings have  just enough detail to pull the reader into the scene.

“Story time with signs and rhymes”

American Sign Language (ASL) is used to give an added activity to the counting of 1 to 10 using Halloween trick-or-treating door bell ringing creatures: warty witch, creepy cats, scary skeletons, wild werewolves, moaning mummies, playful pumpkins, zany zombies, spooky spiders, ghastly ghosts, and haunted houses.

Elementary school age temper painted pictures.

Includes: American Sign Language (ASL) glossary for the numbers 1-10 with picture and description, ASL alphabet handshapes, fun facts about ASL, and two signing activities.

Nothing spreads faster than an outrageous rumor!  Here a young boy tells, “I’m sure I saw a dinosaur and I’m sure that he saw me.” Soon the whole town, plus the army, air force, and scientists have taken over the beach site. Whether they will see a dinosaur or not is yet to be determined, but the young boy’s father is doing a booming business of selling ice cream in this the beach’s off-season.

“A collage is a picture made by sticking different things on to paper, canvas, or cardboard.” ( p. 4)

This beginning how-to book of collage includes 14 different collages spread over the course of 24 pages. Each page usually includes 2 sentences, in large font, dealing with the creation of a collage or the collage on that page.

Title headings include: What is a collage?, Where can I see collages?, What do people use to make collages?, How do people use shapes in collages?,  What can collages show?, How can collages show feelings?, What other types of collages are there?, and Start to make collages!

This book will appeal to true lovers of the game of baseball.  The setting is 1899 and the team, called The Traveling Nine, are going from New Orleans, Louisiana, north as far as Minneapolis, and east as far as Baltimore, looking to play games and earn money to pay off the Payne family’s debt.  As they travel from city to city, it’s up to them to find a team to play, a place to play,  to advertise the game, and to stir up enough interest to get people to pay to come see them play.  The rules of who exactly can play are pretty loose, as there are mature adults, kids, and women all playing for the same team.  At the time, they had a ‘magic’ baseball.  Perhaps the ball wasn’t so much magical but when they used it, they all played and felt as though a super force was with them.  Nothing could go wrong.  Until Guy Payne, the dad of the family, the team’s catcher and star player, disappeared, believed to be dead.  Guy’s brother, Owen, loses the ball and ends up dead, killed by the power-crazed city manager, who steals the ball and wants to steal the glory of winning.  Turns out, Guy isn’t dead after all, and The Traveling Nine gets ready to play the team owned by the magic baseball thief. Turns out the ball wasn’t magical at all, but the power of prayer and the power of good thoughts is a strong motivator.  The story was difficult to get into as it was book six and I am not familiar with the others.  The illustrations were detailed and amazing.  Definitions, explanations and historical notes are in the margin, giving some instruction as to terminology of the game.  I have true baseball nuts in my family, four baseball fantasy lovers.  And that might be my downfall.  I wanted more of the ‘real’ baseball weird stuff to be in the story, not so much magic, or perceived magic, I should say.  The historical part was interesting, however, and I think it’s interesting that not so long ago, baseball players weren’t treated as royalty.

This book provides some history of famous cowboys and the cowboy trade in the late 1800’s primarily in the West.  Cowboy life in pioneering days was exciting and dangerous and this book brings that fact to life, providing an overview of typical cowboy experiences.  Information is sometimes repeated and I would have liked to see more and better photography.  Thus improved visuals and tighter editing would have brought my rating up from “additional”.  Still it is an interesting book and I think students will enjoy reading about American cowboys.

This is a good series about strong female leaders throughout history.  This book is a biography of Qutlugh Terkan Khatun of Kirman.  Other titles in the series include Hatshepsut of Egypt, Artemisia of Caria, Sorghaghtani of Mongolia, Isabella of Castile, and Nur Jahan of India.  The illustrations, photographs of actual artifacts, maps, and time lines bring these biographies alive.  The text is easy to read and presented in a logical and clearly written manner.  The featured women were intriguing and powerful with interesting lives, holding the reader’s attention.  I recommend this series for school libraries.