YOU, the reader, are the main character in this story, and you make the choices in this adventure. You are a servant in the 1890’s while body snatchers are robbing graves. In the beginning, a friend is murdered and her body is snatched. You decide if you trust Igor… try to stop a monster… join the resurrection men… go to the graveyard to look for a hidden diary… become Master Igor’s Apprentice, etc… However, the wrong choice is certain death. (Which could happen in a variety of ways!)  This book has colorful graphic novel pages mixed throughout. Kids will love making such critical choices!

Where in the world are pianos and pianists criminal?…in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution started by Chinese leader Mao Tsetung.  The Red Piano was inspired by the incredible true story of the international concert pianist, Zhu Xiao-Mei.  Art, literature, music, were out…hard manual labor in the fields, and the studying of Chairman Mao’s sayings and commands found in his “Little Red Book”…was in.  Zhu Xiao-Mei spent nearly ten years in a dismal “re-education” camp.  Before entering the camp, she was a gifted child pianist playing concerts on Beijing radio.  Her mother, sent to Beijing for illness, managed to smuggle a piano into her daughter’s neighboring village, where she sneaks out each night for practice.  Of course, she is discovered and publicly shamed…her beloved piano cut up for firewood.  Eventually Mao dies and the camp is emptied.  She is the last person to leave.  What a powerful human rights story told in a sparse, succinct styled prose.  Also, appropriate to the pervasive bleakness of the situation, the illustrator did an outstanding job using black and grey watercolor illustrations punctuated by only one color…red.

Occasionally, I have students interested in fashion, therefore, I had hopes that this publication would give them good examples from the 1980s.  My first disappointment was when I discovered that  the book was heavy on text and skimpy on photographs.  My second disappointment was realizing that the title was misleading.  It felt like more of a “1980’s pop culture” book. If the author had left out the extraneous, non-fashion discourse, and added a bizillion more photographs for the elementary audience, this could have been a fashion winner.  I did find the Timeline in the back matter to be interesting.  Each decade is represented with “The look…The hair…The fad…starting in the 1920s up until 2000.

Author Melissa Stewart takes her readers on a side by side comparison of these two large ocean animals using the headings:

Fish or Mammal?,  Scales or Skin?,  Tail or Flukes? , Gills or Lungs? , Pup or Calf? , and Smell or Sound?

Sharks are always on the left page with the dolphins always opposite on the right page.

The easy straight forward facts are, also, presented in a graphic organizer on page 18.

Contains: web sites, books, index, contents, and words to know

This is book 5 in the Ghostly Graphic Adventures series.

Joey and Tank take a trip to explore Star Island, one of the Isle of Shoal in New Hampshire. Perhaps they’ll find some of Blackbeard, the pirate’s treasure. While on the island they meet up with Mitty who lives there, only to discover later she may be one of the island’s many ghosts.

On page 31 there is a mini history of Star Island.

In this whimsical adventure, some fleas decide to hop off their animals and start a traveling circus.  The audience loves the show which finales with a flea being shot to the moon!  This book would make a fun read-aloud and the colorful illustrations will capture imaginations.  Writing about a flea adventure is a unique idea and the text is descriptive and exciting.

This book is a winner for a catholic school library such as ours.  In the context of the classic Noah’s Ark story, this book took the perspective of Mrs. Noah.  While her husband was busy saving two of each animal on Earth, Mrs. Noah very practically  focused on vegetation, particularly edible vegetation.  She gathered up seeds, plants and trees and loaded them on the ark.  During the flood, Noah’s family had plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables to eat.  When the ark finally landed, Mrs. Noah was able to begin replanting the earth with vegetation.  The illustrations are colorful  and detailed.

The graphic novel style and engaging illustrations should attract young readers to this classic literature by Shakespeare.  The language can be difficult to understand, especially in this abbreviated format without the complete context of the original work.  With a couple of readings as well as the illustrated “Cast of Characters” in the beginning of the book and the “Behind Julius Caesar” plot summary at the end of the book, the storyline does become evident.  The illustrations compliment the text well and are exciting and expressive.

What a fun read-aloud!  This picture book in graphic novel style put a big smile on my face from the rhyming text to the hilarious illustrations.  A school class bakes a gingerbread man and leaves it to cool in the classroom during recess.  The gingerbread man thinks he’s been left behind and goes searching for his class.  From one predicament to another, this persistent little cookie looks for his class.  Finally the cookie lands in the Principal’s office.  She helps him out, explains all and returns him to his class who has been looking for him and is very happy to see him.  Our kindergarten class has a gingerbread activity every fall during which they go hunting for a gingerbread man who is loose in the school.  They will particularly enjoy this story as will several younger classes who fondly remember that kindergarten activity.

This creative and fun picture book takes little Katie and her grandma to an art gallery with a Monet exhibit.   While grandma rests, Katie is surprised when a woman in a Monet painting invites her to hop into the painting for a little art lesson.  Borrowing some art supplies, Katie hops out of the first painting and into 4 more, encountering adventures and inspiration from Monet’s beautiful works along the way.  The name of each painting is given and there is more information about the art featured in the back of the book.  The illustrations are lovely and Impressionist in style, complimenting the story text well throughout.  At our school, elementary students create their own waterlily pond picture  in the Impressionist style.  Teachers will enjoy reading this book during that unit.  It is a welcome addition to our library collection.