Diana Cooper has written 5 books about Tara and her talking kitten, Ash-ting.  In the first chapters of this book, Tara meets her guardian angel who protects her.  “Uncle” Steve came to visit and made Tara and her sister, Mel, very uncomfortable.  Both Ash-ting and her guardian angel encourage Tara to tell her parents.  As she gets to know her guardian angel, the angel helps her relax when struggling to read and protects her from danger when she forgets Dad’s warnings when riding her bike.  Tara and Ash-ting meet fairies, elves, pixies, and brownies.  With their help, she is able to save an old oak tree from being cut down to make room for a new road.  The author writes from her personal experiences, but the overall message is to empower one’s self to help others and how to handle difficult situations.  Diana Cooper has a website about the topics in this book.  A publisher website includes discussion points in the Children’s Corner.  School libraries in conservative districts should preview this series before purchasing.

Joanne Mattern begins with interesting information in her introduction to traditional China.  She discusses Chinese cooking and variations of cuisine within the different climates from north to south.  Eleven recipes include rice and noodle dishes, dumplings, desserts, holiday foods, and tea.  Ingredients and instructions are clear.  When adult assistance is indicated, the text is bold.  Ingredients can easily be found in most grocery stores.  There are colorful photographs of each dish.

Directions for creating successful crafts include hints for gathering materials, preparing, and having fun while being creative.  Materials for each craft are common in most homes or easily purchased.  Instructions are fairly clear.  Photo show some steps in the process and the finished product.  However, the instructions for the kite are confusing.  Some materials were listed but not included in the instructions.  Photographs did not show the kite described.  Information about China and the recipes are excellent.  I recommend this book on that alone.  The craft section is weaker, but each craft can be easily managed by grade school aged children.  There is an extensive list for further reading and several internet sites.  This book is a great resource.

This book examines the role of principal in a school.  It is one of six in the school edition of ABDO’s Going to Work series.  Principals is written simply but with enough information for a 2nd to 4th grader interested in the topic.  This book is full of colorful and complimentary photographs of principals doing various tasks around the school setting, giving the impression of approachability of principals.   There is a glossary, index and table of contents.

This is the first in a fun series reminiscent of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books in format and style.  The unique angle of this book is that it incorporates and defines words which begin with the letter “A”.  Each book in the series focuses on a subsequent letter in the alphabet with definitions in the back.  The second book is titled Bogus while the third is titled Cahoots.  Artsy-Fartsy is written in the context of a mystery, in which the main character, 10 year-old Aldo, receives a red letter sketchbook from his Grandmother so he can draw in it as a summer activity.  Aldo and his buddy Jack discover a great big tree with boughs which hang low and make it a great “fort”.  They fill their new fort with comforts and Aldo hide his notebook there.  Pretty quickly he finds that his notebook had been discovered as mystery drawings appear.  The boys spend most of the story trying to figure out who is getting into their fort and drawing in the notebook.  There are sketches throughout the book which comically illustrate the entertaining antics of the characters.  Written at AR level 3.8, it’s an easy read that could appeal to a wide range of ages from mid-elementary through middle school.

The illustrations make this picture book especially appealing as we follow a young boy with a colander on his head who spends his day imaging battles with dragons using the sunflower his mother gave him for a sword.  Imagination takes flight in bright and cheerful illustrations which fill the page with whimsical images.  Suddenly the boy encounters a read dragon who mistakes the sunflower for a gift and gives the boy a ride on his back.  By the end, other knights join our hero.  They each put down their sword, pick up a sunflower gift for a dragon and hop on its back for a ride into the blue sky.

Beautiful!  This favorite Christian poem has been gloriously illustrated with colorful, detailed and very geometric paper cut-outs.  A lovely addition to our Catholic school library, I believe this will be a kindergarten class read-aloud.  For the musically minded, the poem is put to music in the back of the book.

This book will especially appeal to a child whose mother is expecting a baby.  Little Edward really wants a little brother but finds his parents are right and he is delighted with his new baby sister when she finally comes.  Sweet and genuine, this darling picture book captures the view of a typical older sibling-to-be waiting in anticipation for the new addition to the family.

This book in the Redwall series stood out as unique from the others in that it was more like a separate story with mainly new characters.  Martin the Warrior was present in the plot but many new characters were introduced.  The main character in the Redwall books are typically quite well-developed.  However, in this book, that was not so much the case.  It was an entertaining and exciting story as usual which earns a recommendation for adding to a school library collection.

An interesting combination of fantasy, science fiction and horror, this book is hard to put down.  Although the cover art implies a 3rd or 4th grade reader, the content is definitely for older readers (5th – 7th grade).  In this story, a 12 year old girl named Josephine lives an unhappy life with a father who ignores her completely and without friends.  When a little boy who also doesn’t speak arrives at her remote house seemingly out of no where with ragged clothes, she is confused but thankful for a friend.  He stays for a short time then disappears back into the run down shed in the back yard.  In looking for the boy in the shed, Josephine tumbles into a void and another world full of danger and life-gobbling monsters.  Will Josephine ever make it out of this perilous world to get home and does she really want to leave her new friends for the life she left behind?  Read to find out!

Poor Nana Quimby discovers a flooded basement while baking her cake.  After the plumber does his work and the water is gone, Nana discovers 10 frogs hopping out of her dry basement.  Quickly following are 20 more frogs, then 30 more, then 40, then 50, then 100, then a million more frogs!  With each discovery, Nana shouts out her window to neighbor kids happening by for suggestions and each time finds a bigger and bigger container to keep her frogs safe.  Finally she just fills her basement back up with water and enjoys her new pets (and her cake).  This is a silly, funny picture book with entertaining illustrations.  Perfect, for reading aloud, it is going into my elementary story time lesson plans!  Kids will love it!