This modern fairy tale, third in the series, is a whimsical story of magic and charm. It describes the origin of the character, Jack Frost. He is known as Nightlight, sworn to protect the Man in the Moon and light his way. But when the Nightmare King attacks, Nightlight brings him down with a price of losing his thoughts and his name. He awakens many years later as Jackson Frost, “an icy boy . . . whose slightest breath or touch brought spirals of frost.” Cold and lonely, he flies aimlessly until he encounters children in need and remembers his earlier oath to guide and protect, and finds renewed purpose watching over the children of Earth. The illustrations are magical with an intensity that feeds curiosity.

This is a very silly book about a donkey and a yam arguing about proper pronunciation and grammar. The donkey is oblivious to his misuse of the words, “is,” “am,” and “are.” The yam grows continually more irritated and finally gives the donkey a lecture about proper verb conjugation, only to finally be eaten by the donkey at the end of the book. Children will be amused by the comic-book style speech bubbles and highly expressive characters.

This is an artistic look into the life of a young boy and his dog who run a morning paper route. The lyrical prose set against the vivid paintings present a highly nostalgic view of what used to be many young men’s early morning routine, before the shift toward digital news. Children will find the illustrations visually stimulating, and parents may enjoy the calming tone of this lullaby-like tale.

Nine eyewitness accounts of suspected bigfoot encounters, from across the United States, eight of which occurred within the past seventeen years.  These occurrences took place in Pennsylvania, Washington state, Alaska, New Jersey, Texas, Oregon, Ohio, and California. One sighting was by a postal work delivering mail, another by a snowmobiler, another by a man fishing his favorite fishing spot along a river, another by an experienced deer hunter, and yet another by a family hiking.

The book leaves the topic open ended, saying this is what these people think happened. “What do you think the men saw?” (7) “Or could it have been something else?” (9) “But could he have been mistaken about what he saw on that dark night?” (11)  And there is a disclaimer on page 3 saying, “Stories in this book are taken from eyewitness accounts and cannot be proven true or false.” The majority of the accounts were told to the Bigfoot Field Research Organization (BFRO) who found them to be credible.

The graphic novel presentation of this topic will appeal to readers. Especially since there are so few actual photos of bigfoot and most encounters seem to be short and visual.

This reprint of a classic tells of a neglected tree that just needed someone to care.  The young girl clears away the rubbish, rakes, hoes, and plants flowers so that in spring the now proud tree flourishes like never before. It’s branches, leaves and blossoms give way to apples until its producing, “Plenty of apples/delicious to eat/juicy and crunchy/crisp and sweet.”  Apples keep coming, “The more we ate/the more they grew/the more we wondered/what to do.” Finally at the Apple Festival they made a pig of themselves eating apples prepared in so many different ways.  And you’re invited next year.

A good choice to celebrate fall and harvest time.

Using simple text, this book focuses on the science and technology behind boats.  It starts with the physics concept of density and why boats float followed by how different forces such as wind, paddles, propellers and engines can make a boat move .  The engineering concepts focus on how differences in the shape of the hull affect its ability to cut through the water.  Math is incorporated when discussing relative wind strengths in relation to sailboats.

This book effectively balances the need to simplify difficult science concepts and the opposite need to maintain enough complexity to communicate complicated concepts.  A solid choice for a library looking for STEAM titles for young readers.

Contains a table of contents, glossary, online links and a index.

This is an cheerful portrayal of the first day of kindergarten.  Starting with excitement and nerves at home before school and moving on to the activities that take place in kindergarten.  Kindergarten is described more by the activities than the learning that takes place.  Nervousness makes way to optimism, “Now you’re BIG! You’re in school! And…. It really is cool!”

Colorful appealing illustrations portraying diverse smiling children.  I good choice for pre-school transition and the early days of kindergarten.

Reading can lead to curiosity and passion. Priscilla talks about gorillas “morning, noon and night” after her dad gives her an All About Gorillas book for her birthday.  Her love of gorillas becomes part of everything thing she does, from school to the grocery store to her cloths.  Sometimes her love for gorillas interferes with school.  Priscilla’s gorilla-like antics mean she’s spending a lot of time in the class’s thinking corner getting her the label of troublemaker. Priscilla’s dad points out that her book says that gorilla’s cooperate and if that she’s going to be a troublemaker she should choose a different animal, like a skunk.  After much thought, Priscilla apologizes to her teacher.  On a trip to the zoo the impact of her love of gorillas is clear when her classmates can share many interesting facts about gorillas.  When Priscilla demonstrates her gorilla dance, the gorilla responds with a dance of his own.

With photographs and simple text, this book provides an introduction to lizards.  The informational text on lizards includes common characteristics, habitat, and diet.  It also includes some specific information about the blue-tailed skink, gecko, and iguana.  The book would benefit from captions on the photographs.

Contains table of contents, glossary and index.

Linked online resources include photographs with a brief description of lizards.  Also included are downloadable print activities, links to elementary level informational websites, and a 4 minute video.  All links to external websites were dead links.