A fanciful series of poems all centered around the theme of a circus, from the viewpoint of the circus chef.  The illustrations are equally fanciful, well-matched in style to the text.  Though the poems may be a bit inconsistent, the delights outnumber the duds, and the individual poems are tied together at the end with the final two poems working to connect the others into a comprehensive story.

I confess that my review may perhaps be a bit biased, as I am not naturally inclined to approve of authors who take advantage of copyright holdings to use the characters and style of a deceased author to carry on adding to a series of books without the input of the original author.  This story is a rather pedantic story with an obvious mission: namely to encourage children to recognizing the abilities, rather than the disabilities of kids in wheelchairs.  It lacks the humor of the original stories, in which George’s curiosity lands him into some kind of disaster. There’s nothing bad about this story, but there’s nothing exceptional about it either.

In simple text, supported by color photos, this book does an adequate job of describing different kinds of currency, including cash, checks, and credit cards.  It points out the historical use of shells and stones and beads and beans to serve the same purpose. It explains that most countries have their own kinds of currency, and goes into details describing the different bills and coins of American currency.  It ends with a final “chapter” about using money wisely, discussing the differences between needs and wants, and encouraging the wisdom of avoiding debt.  It’s fine for what it is, but given that it’s intended for early readers, the simplicity of the text limits the depth of the information.

It’s got a sturdy binding, and it does a decent job of clearly and accurately defining a circle, providing lots of color photos of real-world examples, with the circles brightly highlighted.  The examples are ones small children will easily recognize:  wheels on a car, pizza, hula-hoops, etc. But really, how much is there to say about circles?  It seems a bit pricey to spend over $100 and invest the shelf space to buy 6 different books to describe 6 different shapes.  If you’ve got the room and the dough, this series at least doesn’t seem to erroneously include incorrect examples (including spheres with circles, for example).  What I would be particularly curious to know is whether the rectangle book includes squares, as it should, and whether the hexagon and triangle books are careful to include non-regular shapes.

Illustrated by somewhat cartoonish water colors, this picture book biography of our third president is suitable for all ages.  Returning often to Jefferson’s love of farming and making things grow, this book draws many parallels between this passion of his and how it influenced his many roles in government.  From planting the first seeds of independence as author of the Declaration of Independence, to growing America’s economy and sharing it’s natural riches with the world, while seeking new varieties abroad, as minister to France; from his experiments and inventions in support of agriculture, to doubling the size of the young nation with the Louisiana Purchase and the exploration, everything is presented as different manifestations of the same theme of nurturing and seeking growth, sprinkled with quotes of his own writing throughout the illustrations.  An end-note does share the controversial contradiction of his role as slave-owner who declared, “all men are created equal,” without trying to justify or explain it away — simply recognizing it as another facet of this complex man, leaving the judgments to the reader.

The illustrations are cute, photos of 3-D scenes created with toys and miniatures, the main character a hand-made sock bunny, whose expressions are drawn with marker on face swatches that get switched between photos. The scenarios in the books (mom insisting that bunny get ready, and bunny fulling intending to, but continually distracted by the events of his imagination) are certainly situations young children would relate to.  But intended for the very youngest, I fear the book will find limited audience in school settings.

A solid little non-fiction beginning reader.  On the one hand, the topic may seem more suited to older students, while the text and format are definitely targeting beginning readers, but it will still have its uses as a beginning introduction to civics in the United States.  Where as some beginning readers tend to over-simplify information for the sake of simplifying the text, this one manages to convey a clear and concise explanation of the three branches of the Federal Government, explaining the division of power, and the ways the power of each branch is limited by the others.  The text is limited to 1-3 sentences per page, well-supported by relatively up-to-date color photos.  Though it certainly doesn’t go into great depth, it does capture the basics.

A good, solid little beginning chapter book.  It doesn’t sacrifice character development or believability for the sake of simplicity.  The main character is part of a group who volunteers each Saturday at their local pet shelter, and at the beginning of this tale some newly rescued dogs from Puerto Rico have arrived, seeking homes.  Suzannah and her team each get to name one of the new arrivals, and help prepare them for adoption.  As the only member of her squad who doesn’t have her own pet at home, Suzannah is faced with the conflicting feelings of wanting her favorite to find a good home, but also not wanting to give her up.  Meanwhile, at school, her class is planning a pet day as  all her classmates write stories about their pets and plan to bring them to school to show off.  Again feeling like the only one who doesn’t have her own pet (although she comes to learn she’s not alone), Suzannah chooses to share Paloma’s story.  I think the characters in this book and the feelings/problems they face will be things that readers will really relate to.

Intended as an early-reader non-fiction piece, it does an adequate job of providing some basic information about desert conditions and about how plants and animals adapt to those harsh conditions.  It did a good job of clarifying that the distinctive characteristic of a desert is its lack of precipitation, not its heat, drawing distinctions between hot, cold, and polar deserts.  It provided a decent world map, showing locations of different types of deserts.  I just wish it had done a better job of providing pictorial support when listing types of plants and animals that are likely to be very unfamiliar to most American children.

All-around a rather awkward tale.  It’s more or less told in rhyme, but the rhythm of the rhyme is inconsistent and difficult to read fluently.  The artwork appears to be trying to invoke traditional Russian folk art, except it includes modern-day cars.  It seems to imply that he somehow uses his ladder to fling himself up and over the road way to reach the cherry tree he wants to harvest, but the illustrations make in unclear exactly how that supposedly happened.  Then, for some reason, after collecting his cherries, he forgets to use his original technique to cross the road, instead walking out into on-coming traffic and getting hit and smashed to bits.  His wife attempts to put all his disembodied bits back together, but he goes home with parts in all the wrong places, ending with what is supposed to be the clever remark that, “As for Ivan…he’s beside himself.” The whole thing seems rather pointless and difficult to follow.