I was prepared to really like this book. I enjoyed Mbalia’s Tristan Strong books and assumed I would also like this one. While I grew to like it more than the beginning, it was not my favorite read. The story is about young Yared competing in a virtual/real world competition to locate an obelisk that turns into a desperate battle with a warring alien race. I struggled at the beginning of the book with the skimpy world-building needed to understand the setting of the story. Many invented words are thrown at the reader so quickly that it’s hard to get a sense of the story. Once I got far enough into the action-packed plot, the story picked up & moved through many action scenes with thrills & plot twists. While I enjoyed the action, I wonder how many readers will stick with it long enough to get there. The afterword was interesting when it was revealed that this sci-fi world and battle are actually based on real Ethiopian history.
Animal Architects, by Amy Cherrix
The illustrations are all in earth tones, very suited to the topic, as the text shares about a variety of animals that are skilled builders, from the Great Barrier Reef to a penguin’s pebble nest to a beaver’s dam, and so on. The examples provide a good mix of familiar and less common. Several pages are given to each example so that there is some depth of detail, including why the animals build what they do. A solid choice.
Dee and Apostrofee, by Judith Henderson
D and the other letters are a bit put out with Apostrofee for gobbling up so many letters and taking their places. It’s full of examples to show the purpose of an apostrophe.. It’s cute, but I think I’ve seen other books that do the job better. A lot of the examples in this one are not common uses and/or don’t follow the usual pattern, and yet no explanation is given (i.e. shan’t, d’ssert, s’pose, d’plorable). At first I wondered why they misspelled Apostrofee’s name, but then I noticed the author is from Quebec, so it could be a Canadian spelling.
Even the Smallest Will Grow, by Lita Judge
I need to buy several copies to have on hand for baby shower gifts. It’s a beautiful book, best shared between parent and young child. The illustrations are gloriously beautiful and whimsical. The text is sentimental and full of hope and wonderings for the future. It’s full of comparisons of child and nature, opening with an acorn sleeping beneath a blanket of leaves until it begins to grow, just like the child tucked into a warm bed. The voice is that of the parent speaking directly to the child, offering a wide variety of possibilities and analogies. It makes my heart warm and fuzzy!
The Great Stink, How Joseph Bazalgette Solved London’s Poop Pollution Problem. Colleen Paeff and illustrated by Nancy Carpenter
This is a humorous and informative picture book which tells the story of Joseph Bazalgette, a 19th century engineer who designed London’s first sewage system. This greatly reduced the Cholera breakout and subsequent deaths caused by the open sewers of the city. He is credited with being one of the most effective engineers connected with the country of England, while changing the course of history. This book would make a nice addition to an elementary library.
Oh Look, a Cake! by J.C. McKee
It’s a fun, simple, “sweet” read, with a devilish twist at the end that will appeal to the older elementary kids as well as the young ones. When Sloth and Lemur happen upon a rather lovely cake, they ponder having a party, but all the guests they consider inviting seem problematic in one way or another. They finally conclude there’s just no one left to eat it except themselves. As they lay about among the crumbs with full bellies, along comes Tiger, outraged that the lovely cake he’d made himself for his birthday is gone. Sloth apologizes, but Tiger tells them not to worry…(page turn)…he can still get it back…(page turn)… And the final page just shows the Tiger walking away with a satisfied expression from the plate of cake crumbs, with no Sloth or Lemur in sight. Draw your own conclusions. I like that it leaves it open to the readers’ interpretations — a good opportunity to talk about inference. It reminds me a bit of my favorite Jon Klassen books. My only critique is that it is told entirely in dialogue without any quotation marks or he said/she said (it uses different fonts to distinguish who says what), and it could have been helpful if the different fonts were a little more different to be really clear.
An Earth-Bot’s Solution to Plastic Pollution by Russell Ayto
This book highlights the challenge of pulling children’s eyes off of screens long enough to recognise and act on the crisis of plastic pollution in the oceans. Neo doesn’t want to stop playing his game long enough to clean up his room let alone the ocean which is steps from his front door. It takes visits from three different sea creatures begging for help and a trip underwater himself for him to appreciate the problem. Once motivated, Neo works with the ocean creatures to help clean up. The story wraps up with a call to action to use less plastic.
The strongest part of the book is the illustrations depicting the effects of plastic on ocean dwellers. Instead of depicting the ocean with waves, Ayto represents it as row upon row of plastic bottles.There is a jellyfish floating inside a plastic bag and a humpback whale ingesting over a hundred bottles unintentionally.
I found the earth-bot premise distracting. It seems that Neo wears a glass helmet with antennae because of his connection to his video game. But Grandpa, a former astronaut, wears something similar for no discernable reason. It would have made sense that once Neo was pulled away from the video game, the helmet would also have gone away to demonstrate his new focus.
There was a missed opportunity to provide more background information on ocean pollution. Overall this book would be a good introduction for young children when paired with other titles. Join the No-Plastic Challenge! A First Book of Reducing Waste by Scot Richie provides doable suggestions for kids to take action. One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of The Gambia by Miranda Paul provides an inspirational true story.
The List of Unspeakable Fears by J. Kasper Kramer
After watching her father die during the typhoid epidemic, 10-year old Essie is plagued by fears. There are so many, in fact, that she keeps a list — a list of unspeakable fears. Her mother is now remarried to a doctor she believes to be sinister and cold. He has moved them to an island off New Year City where they live in a creepy, possibly haunted, house with the beacon from the lighthouse scanning her room in the middle of the night. Her step-father is the head of the quarantine hospital for the incurable sick, including the infamous Typhoid Mary. Essie bravely battles her fears while trying to figure out why her step-father walks the ocean’s shores at midnight. Are she and her mother safe?
Fans of “A Monster Calls” will enjoy this psychological thriller by the author of “The Story that Cannot Be Told.”
Fourteen Monkeys: a rain forest rhyme, by Melissa Stewart
Well I pretty much love most things Melissa Stewart has written, and this one illustrated my another of my favorites, Steve Jenkins. The book shares details about fourteen different kind of monkeys that all live in the Manu National Park in Peru. It begins by pointing out that it is unusual for so many different kinds of monkeys to live in the same area, and that it is possible because they each live at different heights above the ground, behave in different ways, and eat different foods, meaning they don’t compete with each other for food or space. Each two-page spread is dedicated to a different kind of monkey, with a two line rhyming stanza in a large font for younger readers, and a more detailed paragraph for those seeking more information. Accompanying each illustration is a silhouette of a tree marking the height within the rainforest that that monkey occupies. In the back of the book a larger version of the same silhouette shows all the monkeys on one, and an illustration depicts all the monkey sizes in relative scale, alongside the shadow of an adult human for comparison purposes, and further statistics such as lifespan, scientific names, diets, and predators are listed for each monkey.
Vampires of Blinsh, by Daniel Pinkwater
So I looked online at the professional reviews posted on the Titlewave website, and they were all more or less generally positive, but I’m just going to be honest and say I didn’t like it. I couldn’t find a plot or purpose to it. The illustrations depict a town made up of 51% vampires, and are suitably dark for such a setting, and yet are silly and cartoonish for a young audience. The reader is invited to come visit this town and is shown assorted scenes one might find looking down upon the town on a typical night. The text isn’t so much a narrative as a series of captions.