The rhyming text tells of a cheerful chick who’s got a dream of starting up a barnyard cheer team. She’s made herself an outfit, practiced her moves, thought up her cheers, but when she ventures through the farm to enlist the other animals she is met with a less-than-enthusiastic response. Everyone is busy with their own agendas, and they each send her on her way. What she doesn’t notice is the series of other chicks who are following her throughout the barnyard, watching her every move. Just when she’s about to give up altogether, they joined her, and by then the grown-up animals’ work was through, so they at least served as an audience as the chick cheer team performs.

Based on the family stories handed down by the author’s grandmother, it tells the story of a year in the life of a family during the Great Depression of the 1930s. When a single mother of 8 children gets evicted from their home, they move into a shack in the woods and make it into a home. Granted, it is a very romanticized view of some harsh realities, but one of the points that the author is making (according to the author’s note in the back of the book), was that though times were hard, the memories her relatives carried forth from these times were overwhelmingly good ones. The illustrations certainly contribute to the nostalgic feel of the book, softening the harsh realities.

The text is almost an essay about friendship, a series of truisms. It might seem preachy, except that the topic is one that everyone can relate to, and the things it has to say are things that so many children will have had experience with, so rather than coming off as preachy, it comes across as a recognition and validation of their own experiences, as well as a reminder about how things can turn around. The illustrations help set the tone, being very soft and comforting and sweet.

The tone of the writing is that of a dime-store detective novel, and the cartoonish illustrations present the information in the form of rap sheets, but within this silly format is a lot of substantial information about animals with which many readers may be unfamiliar. The common theme running through to connect the animals that are included is that each exhibits some sort of behavior that could be considered anti-social: the Anglerfish is wanted for illegal fishing, the Common Cuckoo for bad parenting, the llama for assault, etc.

This is a lovely book, useful for discussing adjectives and opposites and changing perspectives. The text is a series of simple declarative sentences describing a young girl’s experiences of the ocean within a single day. The illustrations add to the meaning of the text by showing how she can say back to back that the ocean is both shallow and deep (the part that rushes up on the sand v. the part she jumps into off the end of a pier), and likewise with a whole series of other opposites. One of the things I think adds a special touch to this book is that the illustrations show the main character with hand crutches: there’s no reference to why she needs them, but the readers get to see a girl with some sort of physical impairment going about her life enjoying all the beach experiences without letting her crutches get in the way.

A great book for sharing nursery rhymes with young students, this book can be a fun way to review that which is familiar to some, while introducing famous nursery rhymes to those who don’t yet know them. As the characters are out on a walk, different things they saw throughout their trip remind them of nursery rhymes, which they share. The telling of the story includes lots of its own rhyming and repetition between the nursery rhymes, so there are many opportunities for making the sharing of this book an interactive group experience.

I like this book. It’s a science lesson disguised as a picture book. It’s written in a friendly, conversational tone, and begins by telling the reader how to find a worm in their yard, and the little cartoon-side-kick worm suggests some other things they’ll need, too (all easily accessible household items). It goes on to essentially offer a series of instructions for an observation lesson on the structures and behaviors of a typical worm. It doesn’t feel like the instructions for a science lesson, though, because it feels like the reader is just joining the kids in the illustration on an interactive adventure.

Some students may be put off by Ed Young’s somewhat dark mixed-media illustrations, but the really do a good job of evoking the mood of the story. This retelling of a Chinese folktale describes the efforts of the wind and rain and sun to win a bit as to who can force young shepherd girl (I like that the shepherd is a girl) to lose her cap. After the wind sends gales to try to blow it off, and the rain likewise storms at her through the night, it is the rising of the warm sun that shines upon her and warms her enough that she removes it herself when she begins to sweat.

It’s fun. We usually use the term “cat ladies” to describe women who have a lot of cats. But in this case the cat who’s telling the story uses the term to refer to the four women who take care of her. Princess is quite content with her comfortable world filled with the devoted attentions of the four cat ladies, until an interloper arrives. When a stray (grandchild?) shows up on the scene, the ladies’ attentions are diverted, and Princess begins feeling neglected. When she sets out on her own, she gets herself into a bit of a pickle, and it’s the stray who comes to the rescue. Princess decides she might be trainable after all.

This is a beautiful book! The color photos that fill the pages are vibrant and detailed. The text is a poem on the life of a frog. Because the text is simple and repetitive, with just a few sentences per page, it is good for beginning readers, and yet it is full of rich vocabulary (lunges and gaze and spelunks and ponder). The two page author note in the back points out the differences between anecdotal observations and scientific studies, but it doesn’t undervalue the anecdotes, pointing out that wondering and imagining are what help scientists come up with good questions to investigate. It’s not heavy on the information, but it’s the kind of book to spark curiosity.