Max uses his “super secret” powers to overcome obstacles that appear during his adventures. The illustrations reflect the movement of Max as whooshes with his jet pack or zooms in his race car. He meets and defeats each challenge until he dead-ends at the door with a secret combination, broken with the code word, HOME!  The author/illustrator, Stephen Shaskan, does a beautiful job of combining movement, sound and story to carry a young boy on an exciting adventure using his “super-secret” imagination.   A delightful book.

The colorful  illustrations in primary colors with whimsical facial expressions on the toilet are the saving feature of the book, The Saddest Toilet in the World. In an attempt to help a child overcome his fear of potty training, the toilet is personified as having feelings and emotions.  The toilet “runs away” from the home because the boy would not sit on it.  A search ensues for where the toilet could be. In the attempt to be playful, the antics of the toilet become a bit absurd. Maybe a child would find it entertaining to make the potty topic humorous but the delivery falls short. This is not a book that would be recommended.

Extremely cute animals face off against extremely mean bullies with extremely heavy machines.  Just ‘cause you’re cute doesn’t mean you can’t defeat the big bad bullies, especially if you’re smart and you have friends.  The illustration of the pink tutu-clad girl bunny welding a steel beam shows how to overcome bullies: with strength and determination. Bullies are mean, they hurt feelings, but they can be defeated and even reformed.  The happy ending includes letting the bullies share in the fun of the grandest sand castle/amusement park built by biggest, baddest machines ever.  It is a simple story with a powerful message: facing challenges with compassion and forgiveness.  A worthwhile, fun read from David Gordon.

Another take on the quest for treasure, good vs. evil genre of children’s books.  The illustrations are in a  “video game” style with different levels to survive and unusual terrains to traverse.  The multitude of little characters and side humor jokes keeps the book interesting in spite of the rather usual story line.  Heroes such as a Unicorn and a Gnome add to its appeal for children.  A silly reason for the theft–the Old Oak stole the Mystical Crystals of Life to buy a speedboat–lessen the depth, therefore the interest in the story.  It is an okay book for a possible one or two time read, not destined to be the long-held treasured favorite, read every night book. 

A delightful, rough-edged presentation of basic manners. Pirates are pirates: they burp and fight and plunder but they don’t forget to say “please” and “thank you” or share fairly or use their “inside voice”.  Zany, colorful illustrations plus humorous rhyming text add to the message of manners amid chaos. This would be a fun book to read to children around three to eight-year-old. Thoroughly entertaining!  Bravo to Corinne Demas and Artemis Roehrig.

Lucille O’Malley teen years are not footloose and fancy-free.  In the heart of the Depression, the O’Malley family barely makes it by on the small profits from doing other people’s dirty business – their laundry.  Lucille’s mother always has a happy outlook, but Lucille desperately wants to find other means to support her family.  Unfortunately, it was another kind of dirty business that allows her an opportunity.  While delivering garments one afternoon, Lucille witnesses a New York mobster, Salvatore Benedetto, kill another man.  With the police already on Sal’s heals, he doesn’t shoot Lucille too.  But when the police question Lucille, she covers for Sal.  Impressed but still worried she might spill the beans at some point, Sal grants her wish to move to Hollywood and arranges for her to become an actress with an agent.

In a parallel storyline, Frederick Preston Aloysius van der Waals, the heir to a business and lifestyle of power and extreme wealth in New York, is learning that he doesn’t like his life either.  He appreciates his betrothed girlfriend who wants to marry the 17-year-old but he doesn’t love her.  He used to love his father but learns that he is a back-stabbing, lying, money-hungry power monger who has no sense of remorse or empathy for others.  Wanting nothing to do with the family “business” anymore, he disappears and begins to cross the country, heading for California.

The 2 plot lines remain separate for part 1 and 2 of the book.  Lucille learns what it takes to be a Hollywood starlet and Frederick bums his way across the country with the aid of a companion named Ben.  How their paths cross is unique and it is quickly realized that they will eventually couple up.  But each keeps their secret of how they ended up in California from each other until the fates push out the truth.  Frederick’s greedy father and notorious Sal both make resurgences to bring about the climax.  How the issue with Sal is wrapped up feels rushed and weak considering his gangster status but the relief of tension between Frederick and his father is satisfying.  Authors Adam Shankman and Laura Sullivan keep this plot driving forward, especially in part 3 as another gunshot puts Lucille in the center of a high-profile Hollywood scandal.  Looking at these author’s own profiles helps explain why this text is such a well-written young adult novel that feels like it could go straight to a screenplay.   Both male and female teens would enjoy this story if only the publisher hadn’t put a picture of a female on the front.  Why do they do that??? Highly recommended for middle or high school libraries.

Overdrive, by Dawn Ius, deals with the importance of family and the effects of loss, while taking the reader on a wild ride through the Las Vegas underworld of auto theft.  Jules is “The Ghost,” a seventeen-year-old lost in the Foster Care System.  She boosts cars to sell to make extra money to help give her little sister Ems a better life.  The Ghost lets her looser boyfriend talk her into a jacking that doesn’t feel quite right and it lands her in police custody.  The only way she can stay out of jail and not be separated from Ems is to accept the offer of a mysterious benefactor, Roger, and join three other teens at his palatial home as his “family.”  The situation in which Jules finds herself is a bit fantastic, but the characters are believable.  The language, while rough, fits the situation and the characters.  It is a good romance story, and the romance is not restricted to person to person.  There is also the romance between people and cars, people and thrills, and people and their memories.  The story is well written and fast paced.  It deals sensitively with loss and how different people cope in different ways.  Overdrive features a blistering pace, numerous clever plot twists, characters that surprise with unexpected behaviors, muscle cars to boost, and a surprise ending.  Recommended.

Part history lesson, part biography, part social commentary, part of our lives — Saturday Night Live is an institution in American television history and author Arie Kaplan opens the doors of the who, when and what this sketch comedy show has done for American culture in the past 40+ years.  After an opening chapter that chronicles sketches/characters decade by decade, Kaplan delves into the best chapter of the book, “Diversity…’Yeah, that’s the ticket!'” to shed light on the lack of diversity in the faces and roles on SNL.  While there were women and black men had roles in the show from the beginning, they weren’t leading roles.  Eddie Murphy broke out in the early 1980’s but other black male comics on the show weren’t given prominent sketches. 2 black female comics had one season each in the 80’s.  The 90’s witnessed minimal improvement with one black female cast member lasting 6 seasons.  Even Tina Fey didn’t become the 1st female head writer for the show until 1999, after nearly 25 years in production, though only her 3rd season on the show.  But where are the Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Native Americans?  Saturday Night Live has more representing to do “fu-shur”.  A 3rd chapter about SNL’s foci on politics throughout its time on the air makes the contention that SNL swings popular opinions, using Sarah Palin’s Vice-Presidential candidacy as the prime example.  The 4th chapter nestles back into noting the most memorable comedians and what they went on to accomplish after SNL.  In addition to this accessible look into the life of Saturday Night Life, the physical presence of the book is also “Live” so to speak.  Well chosen, full-color pictures pop on the high quality, glossy paper.  The author also added a “Catch Phrase Quiz as well as other resource lists that lend to this text’s appeal for young adults.  Twenty-First Century Books did an A+ job for this 7-12 grade non-fiction title.  Highly recommended.

Sadie Bell is going into a wonderful summer where she gets to take a photography class in the mornings using a camera her father gave her as a gift — a father she has set up on a pedestal though she barely knows him because he lives in California and she lives in New York.  Sadie’s mother’s down to earth, yoga filled lifestyle seems to have kept Sadie grounded but this photography class will push Sadie in directions she didn’t see coming through her traditional viewfinder.  New friends will challenge the relationship with her best friend.  Boy drama will muddy the waters of Sadie’s usually smooth flowing river.  And the father figure Sadie longs to have will influence her in ways she hadn’t anticipated.  Juliana Romano does a fine job keeping Sadie multi-dimensional, surprising the reader with some choices that keeps Sadie as an authentic, somewhat angst filled teen trying to navigate the “streets” of New York city.  This reader likes how secondary layered personalities of characters come out onto the playground of the characters’ lives.  Recommended.

Want an idealistic, goodie two shoes, happy ending story to make you feel warm and fuzzy as the hormones of high school begin pouring out in spring?  Welcome to We Can Work it Out, the next part of Elizabeth Eulberg’s The Lonely Hearts Club.  Penny Lane is a high school student whose Lonely Hearts Club was created to give girls a group to hang out with and be independent of boys.  But when Penny finds herself attracted to and then dating a boy, she has to make hard choices as to which one will get her attention.  The boyfriend is very understanding at first, but as simplistic conflicts build, he turns away.  Will Penny be able to juggle her love for the club with her desire to get the boy back?  Full of many, many, many references to Beatles tunes, We Can Work It out is a perfect read for that 9th grade, boy obsessed person if they realize that everything doesn’t always time up in pretty bows in the end.  It wouldn’t surprise this reader if this became a Disney or Hallmark movies. This is an additional purchase and can be easily read without having read The Lonely Hearts Club.