For a beginning reader, this one really packs in some solid information. I think it’s a great idea to get kids thinking early about career possibilities. This one uses a popular topic of interest as a springboard to spark young students’ curiosity about possible future careers they might have never known about — Aquatic Veterinarian, Marine Biologist, Underwater Filmmaker, etc. It was well-organized and rich in information. One innovation that I decided I particularly liked was that they put the Glossary in the front instead of the usual position in the back of the book: though students may not take the time to read it first, they will at least have seen it, so they know they can refer back as needed.

As is so often the case when trying to create a non-fiction early readers, the constraints of the format limit the information severely. With only 1-3 sentences per page, it’s important in such a book to be very careful about choosing what information to include and how to organize it coherently. This one came off as very disjointed.

I love a good wordless picture book, and the illustrations in this one are simply gorgeous! The soft, moody watercolors show us a father-son fishing expedition on the high seas. Below we see a pod of whales swimming by until one gets tangled in some discarded nets and crab pots. As their day comes to an end, the young boy notices the whale’s distress and convinces his dad they must help. As they get close, we see the whale reflected in the eye of the fisherman, and the fisherman and his son reflected in the eye of the whale. The fisherman dives in and cuts the whale free of the ropes, and after he returns safely to his boat, the whale breeches in thank you. Then they sale home in the sunset.

The illustrations in this book are absolutely gorgeous. They invite you into the story so that you almost forget that a tame, talking tiger wouldn’t really wander out of the woods at a family campground. At his family’s traditional end-of-summer camping trip, the young narrator is feeling down about growing up. After a week of sleeping with the tiger, boating and fishing and stargazing with the tiger, he is sad when it leaves camp on their last day to return to its cave, just as his family must return to their home. When he gets home, he immediately draws his tiger friend to show to his new teacher. It’s a story that left me a bit puzzled at the end, wondering, “huh…I wonder what the point of all that was supposed to be…” and yet I didn’t really care that I was a bit confused. It managed to evoke such sentiment and emotion that I really enjoyed it, even if I didn’t quite “get it.”

If you have a population of Haitian students in your school, it might help fill a niche. It is bilingual, and the illustrations are bright and vibrant. But I thought the story felt a little forced. It tells of a young girl after a rough day at school who wanders into an urban garden where a woman is painting a mural and suddenly finds herself transplanted to a garden in San Pedro de Macoris, where a soon-to-be-famous musician asks for her help finishing his song. Then the two fly away to Croix-des-Bouquets to meet a famous artist who asks for Sofi’s help finding just the right shade of purple she needs for her sculpture, before finding herself back in the original garden, where she asks if she can contribute to the mural, and impresses her sister with the purple flower she paints. The way names of certain places and people are mentioned without explanation makes it feel like a tourist book you would buy as a souvenir after having visited those places, but as an independent story I thought it fell a little flat.

It’s a look at science through a poet’s eyes. All the equations in the book specifically focus on the science of Spring, and are even further organized according to early, mid, and late Spring. On each page, an equation is offered in large print, accompanied by a paragraph explaining the equation is smaller print, thereby offering an opportunity to let students ponder the equations and offer their own predictions about what it refers to before reading the author’s interpretation. It invites readers into considering the basic facts of our scientific world in a new way (e.g. “maple trees x buckets + boiling = sticky smile”). The artwork is mixed-media collage and supports the text nicely.

I really love the illustrations: they’re soft and sweet and inviting. I also really love the message it is trying to convey: that each creature plays an important part in the ecosystem, right down to a lowly worm. And I know stories sometimes need to set aside reality to get to the point, but I admit to having trouble suspending my disbelief with this one: just because one worm stopped doing his job, I’m sure there were thousands of others still at it, and it seems like the amount of time it would take for the soil to harden and for the ecosystem to die away and then come back when the worm went back to work would be far longer than the lifespan of a worm. Just saying’.

It’s fine. It tells of a used car salesman who is feeling a bit bored with all his customers on vacation. Things pick up when a series of dinosaurs come in and each drives away in his perfect car. It will get picked up by all those kids who love dinosaur books, but it doesn’t seem to have any purpose other than trying to appeal to kids who like dinosaur books.

It’s really cute. The text tells the story of some toddlers on a pirate adventure, but the illustrations translate that adventure into toddler experiences. When they “sail across the seven seas,” we see the boys on a floatie at the community pool, using part of a pool noodle as their telescope; when their rival pirates “readied their cannons and took aim,” we see water balloons flying through the air. In the end, after being sent to the dungeon (i.e. their separate port-a-cribs under the shade umbrella), they reform their ways…at least some of the time.

It’s kind of a reverse of The Little Red Hen. When a wimpy cook applies to be the king’s chef, it turns out he’s scared of every step along the way, so the king keeps offering to help, and essentially ends up doing it all himself. In the end, the king loves the meal so much, the wimpy young cook gets the job. The illustrations are fun, full of details that invite the reader to linger; they add a lot of personality to the book.