Teenage girls are sure to fall for Burn Girl and her ambivalent attempts to pursue the search for self, bought to light by Mandy Mikulencak’s persuasive writing style and her ability to build tension right up to the very end.

After her mother’s mysterious death, Arlie’s struggle to find her place in the “normal” world turns out to be a true emotional roller coaster ride. Stuck between abandonment issues and confusing emotions around family, friendship, and love, Arlie’s irrational behavior reflects her traumatic upbringing perfectly. Durango, Colorado is where her mother last took her when she ran away with her hiding from her mean step father. The mysteries around her mother’s death – whether she OD’d or got killed never was resolved but the process of finding truth took it all from Arlie.

The book expresses well that both emotional scarring as well as physical handicaps alike can have deep impact on our development. The author described the tender roots of emotional healing and that it is possible to transform one’s life.

Using various characters offering friendship and help providing a safe space for trust and growth keep the book interesting and alive. A truly heart warming teenage drama with lots of extra twists and turns.

Lots of Bots, book 2 in the series Robots Rule!, reminds me of the Jetsons meet Dr. Evil from Austin Powers.  George Gearing, an 11-year-old boy, has an opportunity to be an apprentice at TinkerTech, a research and development technology company where his parents once worked.  George quickly finds out that all is not what it seems or should be at TinkerTech.  The evil Micron is on the verge of introducing a product which controls people and will allow him to take over the world.  It’s up to George to stop it.  As the title says, Lots of Bots, and this is true–there are robots that do everything.  Plus the names of the characters are a little contrived, for example, Dr. Droid, Mr. Volt, and Micron. All in all, it’s an interesting, fast-moving story and stands alone even though it is book 2.  Kids in grades 3-5 should enjoy the action and humor.

Both beautiful and informative, this non-fiction picture book describes physical traits and behaviors and challenges faced by all bears, and it also dedicates a two-page spread to each of the eight species of bears.  For each species it gives the scientific name, common names, size, as well as detailed descriptions of the habitat, features and behaviors specific to that species.  The beautiful illustrations support the text and draw the curious eye.  A world map in the back indicates where each species lives, and a habitat glossary uses illustrations as well as words to explain the terminology of land features.

Beautiful watercolor illustrations combine with informative text to tell the story of train travel across The United States.  Starting with the fluster of activity on the platforms of an eastern urban train station as a commuter train gets ready to pull out, the story describes the actions of conductors and passengers and the passing views until it reaches another station where we see a passenger train just pulling out to cross the country-side.  Again we get a full description of events and sounds and sights until it pulls into a midwestern city, where we meet a freight train.  And so it goes until the overnight train crosses the Rocky Mountains and encounters a high-speed train heading into a new urban station on the west coast.  Besides being informative about all different kinds of trains, it’s a lovely example of descriptive detail.  Like a virtual cross-country field trip.

A good story, with believable characters facing real-life situations that a lot of kids can relate to.  The story is told from the perspective of its 10-year-old main character, Piper Lee DeLuna.  Piper’s mom is getting ready to get married again, but Piper is not too happy about it, partly because she’s not especially fond of the girl about to become her stepsister, partly because she doesn’t want to give up the hope that her father might still be alive (his body was never recovered from a plane crash), and partly because she doesn’t want to share her mom.  Throughout the story, Piper makes  a lot of not-so-smart decisions that lead to near disasters, but because it’s told from her perspective the reader gets to see why they all seemed like reasonable ideas at the start, until they never turn out the way she’d hoped.

The writing is stilted. The story is boring. The pictures are fine, if a little bit drab in their color scheme.  It’s like a junior graphic novel, telling of two friends going trick-or-treating.  One is too scared at first, but her buddy assures her that her costume does not need to be a scary one; along the way their bike gets a flat tire at a haunted house, but a ghost helps them repair it, so they make it to their party.

It’s well-constructed, and well-formatted.  That is, it’s got a good sturdy binding and all the important non-fiction text features like index, glossary, map, labels… It’s got nearly-full-page color illustrations that support the text.  I just wish it was better written: one page tells us “some rivers flow down to the ocean,” while another says, “The water flows into the ocean,” which sounds both redundant and contradictory.  Don’t all rivers flow into the ocean (unless they’ve been run dry by over-use before they reach it)? One page tells us, “A river is like a waterslide.”  Without any elaboration/explanation.  Did we really need a whole page dedicated to telling us that, “Rivers are full of water.” ?

The simple text is well-supported by color photos of people from all around the world, showing lots of different types of clothing.  It tells about the different reasons people wear clothes, and describes different types of clothes, as well as telling that some people make their own clothes while others buy theirs.  A map in the back highlights where different photos were taken.  It includes a basic glossary (with photos) and index, and it’s got a really good binding.

It’s sweet.  It’s got those classic David McPhail illustrations.  It lists a whole lot of ways that brothers sometimes differ and sometimes disagree, but they find ways to resolve problems and accept each others differences, and some things they have in common, but no matter what they know they’ll always stick together.  Not so much a story as a sentimental treatise on what it means to be brothers.

It’s just kinda lame.  It rhymes.  It’s a list of farm animals who don’t like doing what the author says they should; they all like doing other stuff.  The only normal thing they’re all good at is sleeping.