A retired pigeon private detective is hired by a little canary to track down a feather thief. The feather thief turns out to be the detectives old partner. After solving the crime, the retired detective and the young canary are back in business again. This book would make a better one on one book versus a read aloud. There is some humor and play on words that adults would catch, but children probably would not. 

From the series, Just Like Us, this book compares how birds are just like humans. They make music, build and decorate homes, take care of babies, and teach their young. With color cartoon illustrations and text boxes with information, this book gives examples of how birds build nests, attract mates, and care for their young. It also gives gives examples for specific bird species. There is a glossary at the end titled “Say What?” and a Bibliography. 

Luka has smuggled himself out of a Nazi labor camp even though he had to leave his friend, Lida, behind. He makes his way towards the mountains trying to escape detection from the Nazis and the Soviets and find his way back to his father. He stumbles upon the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and decides that he needs to be with them and fight for the resistance. 

An action packed novel inspired by true events from the author of Making Bombs for Hitler. A recommended purchase for grades 5 and up. 

Here is a new book on Roanoke by Torque- ” action-packed world … [of] mystery , and adventure.” There are seven modern color photos of Roanoke Island and six historic illustrations from the time period. The timeline sums up the known events beginning in 1584 and ending six years later in 1590.

“1584- England sends men to explore the area around Roanoke,

1585- An English fleet comes to Roanoke to build a settlement,

1586- The settlement fails and its men leave,

1587-New English colonists rebuild the settlement,

1590- The colony is found empty with no explanation” (16-17)

There are conjectures dealing with sickness, starvation, and battle, but nothing has been proven in over four hundred years. So do we need a new 24 page book, for a new generation of school children, saying we do not know what happened? Maybe, maybe not.

Ends with www.factsurfer.com.

The Princess in Black is like Bruce Wayne is to Batman or Clark Kent is to Superman, for she is a girl hero in disguise.

In book number 5, the Princess in Black  (AKA Princess Magnolia) is helping Goat Avenger send a monster back to Monster Land, but they do not notice another monster emerge from the hole a short time later. The new monster is a hungry shape-shifter. The Princess in Black currently smells like goats after helping the Goat Avenger, so the hungry monster secretly follows her back to Princess Magnolia’s castle, where she changes clothes. Now Princess Magnolia, still smelling of goats, is being followed by the monster disguised as a trunk riding on the back of her carriage, as the princess heads out for a playdate in the neighboring castle of Princess Sneezewort. Princess Sneezewort shows Princess Magnolia around her castle when a villager starts calling,’  “Help! Help! A monster is trying to eat my kitty!”  ‘(30) In Clark Kent style Princess Magnolia changes into the Princess in Black to rescue the kitty. Princess Sneezewort decides she must protect her kingdom and quickly transforms herself for the first time into the Princess in Blankets. Together they help the villagers, even though they do not know each others true identities. Eventually, the two princesses catch the monster and send him back to Monster Land.

Short chapters , colorful illustrations on every page turn, and scroll work around the text filled pages add an elegant charm which adds to the appeal of this book.

Girls who love math, science, girl scouting, are Hispanic, or just love a great true success story will love this book!

The struggles in this book are real dealing with living between two cultures.

Sylvia Acevedo began life in such an ordinary way. From a small town in South Dakota near Ellsworth Air Force Base born to a Mexican mother and a college educated United States Hispanic father, the family soon moved to Las Cruces,  New Mexico. They lived in an all Mexican part of town until her younger sister contracted meningitis. This changed their lives forever. Sylvia’s mother (Mami) only had a sixth grade education but she knew how to care for her family. Mami sensed her family would do better in the Anglo part of town and set off to make this move happen, even with her limited use of the English language.

Mami realized her children would need to know English to succeed in school, so Mami arranged to have a tutor for Mario and Sylvia.  After Mario entered first grade, Sylvia continue to go to the tutor by herself. Then a new program began- Head Start. Many of the mothers did not trust Head Start, but Mami saw its advantages and enrolled Sylvia. In Head Start, Sylvia was forced to use only one last name, that of her father, leaving her mother’s last name off, a bit of her culture taken away. “I would soon understand that it wasn’t just English that I was going to learn, but also a new way of life.” (79)

Sylvia learns to live between two cultures. Neither culture is put down. She learns to take the best of both and fly with them.

When Sylvia learns to read, she also learns she will be able to get her own library card. Her mother makes her save up $5.00 in a kitty bank, then deposit it in a savings account in a bank, in case a library book is damaged, before getting her library card. Sylvia does all of this, but sees at the same time her older brother not being made to do the same thing because he is a boy. Sylvia takes it all in stride. Just like her father (Papá) a chemist, whose at home time was spent reading, going to libraries, visiting his  father and mother, and with Sylvia’s older brother Mario, but not with her because she was a girl.

When Mami enrolls Sylvia and Mario in the Anglo school, she is automatically placed in the second grade remedial class by the principal because of the school from which they transferred. This does not happen to Mario because there wasn’t a remedial fourth grade. In this new school Sylvia feels alone until the day she wore her Brownie uniform to school. Now the whole new world of Girl Scouting and friendships opens up to her, Sylvia is automatically one in the sisterhood of Girl Scouts.

Girl scouting teaches Sylvia budgeting and planning through the cookie sales. Sylvia sees the value in these skills, along with the other badges, like science and cooking, that Girl Scouts allows her to experience.  Budgeting and planning ahead were skills Sylvia’s home life hadn’t taught her. Sylvia begins to start saving for college on her own, realizing this is not something her family will help her with financially. Girls get married and have families, they do not go to college.

Sylvia excels at school. Sylvia was inherently good at math, she loved reading, she won awards for her drumming (not an instrument usually played by girls in either culture), and basketball.

Domestic violence between her parents rears its head. Sylvia separates herself as much as possible from Papá and his temper. Arguments abound. Sylvia refuses to have a quinceañera, which Papá wants so much for her. “My family loved me, but they didn’t understand me, and I often felt like an outsider in my own home.” ( 263)

Eventually, Sylvia realized she wanted to be an industrial engineer. Here she had to prove to the people around her, the dean at New Mexico State University and their scholarship board, she knew what she wanted and was capable of succeeding at it. Sylvia credits much of it to skills she learned through Girl Scouts: people skills, organization, and planning.

While at New Mexico State University , Title IX came into effect. Sylvia had to prove to the  coaches, she was capable of succeeding at basketball though she had no formal training and had not played on any teams. She made the varsity team at New Mexico State University. Sylvia played one season, mostly as a benchwarmer, then gave it up to pursue her education.

While at New Mexico State University, Sylvia had a summer internship at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “The four-hour drive from Las Cruces to  Albuquerque was probably the best time I ever had with my father. He talked the entire way, but he gave me great advice about working in a laboratory, because he had worked in one too.” (284) The advice dealt with being the ‘victim of silly pranks’, never to complain, “not to get upset, even if my coworkers seemed to be taunting me… to perform flawlessly” (285) , being a woman, a woman in science and math, and being Mexican American.  Sylvia succeeded there, went on to Stanford, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

In the Epilogue on page 299 Sylvia states, ” I learned to create opportunities for myself.”

Meredith Goldstein knows the Boston area and teens’ complex anxieties and coping mechanisms. So the setting and characters work. The story is cute, a bit typical, in that love interests get tied up in the drama of guessing who will end up together while knowing it all along.

High school senior Maya works in her deceased mother’s university lab as a summer intern transcribing notes for her mother’s research partner.  Then her ideal boyfriend dumps her for another. In her grieving she stumbles on to research left her by her mother who was studying methods to keep relationships alive with love and attraction. As a way to win back her boyfriend, she becomes the subject of formulas to make another attracted to you. Three young handsome men and a summer of trials leads to the discovery that there are other factors involved in attraction than chemical compounds. A slightly different take on the the YA romantic novel, Maya is a smart young woman with college plans and an independence many will like.

On October 30. 1938 thousands of Americans panicked when the breaking news on their radios was believed to be that of an actual alien invasion when, in fact, it was a radio drama based on H.G.Well’s play, War of the World. Hysteria swept the nation, and the police and state patrol phone lines were jammed in Trenton, and throughout the state of New Jersey, as residents called for help, and made desperate pleas for authorities to check on their relatives living in the area. Few listeners realized that the dramatic reporting was that of actor H.G. Wells and his Mercury Theatre players.
In this nonfiction title author Gail Jarrow shares in gripping detail the famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast from 1938, examining the artists behind the broadcast, the broadcast itself, the aftermath, and the repercussions which remain relevant today, including the current controversial issue of “fake news”.

Filled with primary sources, Spooked! contains archival photographs and images, a timeline, bibliography, and an index. Spooked! makes a good resource for discussions about fake news, propaganda, and the role of media.

Blacklisted! Hollywood, the Cold War, and the First Amendment chronicles a shameful period in American history when tensions between the Soviet Union and the US were at an all-time high. A “Red Scare” was sweeping America, where supposed communist threats were everywhere. Under the misguided leadership of Senator Joe McCarthy, the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities was formed to investigate those threats. Author Larry Dane Brimner tells the story of 19 men, all from the film industry, who are summoned to appear before the committee on Un-American Activities. The men believe that the committee’s investigations into their personal associations and their political views are a violation of their First Amendment rights. As they refuse to answer the committee’s questions, they are cited for contempt of Congress and blacklisted.
Brimner uses primary sources, including numerous black and white photographs, to outline the plight of these accused men.

Blacklisted! would make an excellent supplemental reference in the study of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and well as for US History units on McCarthyism. Blacklisted! is one of several Social Justice titles by this author. Others include Birmingham Sunday, Black & White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttleworth and Eugene “Bull” Connor, Twelve Days in May: Freedom Ride 1961, and We Are One: The Story of Bayard Rustin.

Jeff Mack has a new series-  Mr. Monkey.  Mr. Monkey is visually appealing slap-stick. Since this is book #2 , the numeral two is replaced with the icon of two banana. The end-papers are filled with the images of two bananas.

Mr. Monkey is learning to juggle: tennis rackets, an umbrella, and a brief case. Ooh! Ooh! Mr. Monkey receives a new email. “DEAR MR. MONKEY , PLEASE VISIT OUR SCHOOL AND DO YOUR TRICK. SINCERELY, THE LIBRARIAN” Mr. Monkey packs his car, then realizes he has forgotten his pants. “OOPS.” (red face)

Mr. Monkey’s trip to school is filled with traffic, an accident with a cow, rain, snow, then a blizzard, and finally a ski jump. Once Mr. Monkey arrives at school his juggling items gets creatively used by a crossing guard, a PE teacher, and the principal until nothing is left for him to juggle once he reaches the stage. “OOH… IT’S SHOWTIME!” Quickly Mr. Monkey exits the stage. He comes back with a cow. “He lifts. He tosses. He catches the cow!” When another cow comes to see what is happening, it is tossed, too. When the librarian comes on stage to check out the act, she is juggled with the two cows. The audience loves this act.

Smiles and giggles are guaranteed with each “oh” and “oops”.