This book provided a traditional retelling of this classic rags to riches tale.  Upon the death of his father, the third son of the miller is disappointed to receive a cat for his inheritance.  After asking for a pair of boots and a hat, the cat proceeds through trickery to obtain the king’s daughter in marriage for his master.

This book is the English edition of a book originally published in Korean.

Large text, non-fiction text features, and age appropriate experiments makes this an intriguing choice for budding young scientists.  After an introduction to the parts of a plant, the four experiments in the book focus on roots, stems, leaves, and seeds.

Its never too early, however, to use correct terminology for the scientific process.  Including terms such as hypothesis, materials, procedure, and results would make this book a better fit for school libraries building their STEM collection.

Contains table of contents, glossary, further reading, and index.

With lovely pictures, soothing cadence, and rhyming text, this book offers the sweet sentiment of bedtime stories everywhere with its repeated refrain, “You nest here with me.”  As the book progresses, the complexity of the details surrounding each subsequent bird and nesting location slowly abates as the colors cool and darken in preparation for the appearance of the moon and stars to sooth the child to sleep on the last page of the story.

Terms such as sedges, boles, and tors are not typical word choices for children’s bedtime stories, but these concise terms for nesting locations would be engaging for older audiences.  Author notes at the end of the book provides more information on the birds in an age appropriate version of an Audubon type bird book.

The love between a cat and an Egyptian queen transcends time in this wonderful and approachable introduction to ancient Egyptian culture and burial practices.  While the Mummy Cat’s exploration of the tomb introduces the reader to features of an Egyptian tomb, the vivid murals and the cat’s reminiscences portray ancient Egyptian life. The hieroglyphs incorporated in the story are explained in the back matter along with an age appropriate explanation of Egyptian mummies, cats, and queens.

This is a 15th Anniversary release of a fun story of Gerald the giraffe who’s insecurity about his body made him, “so sad, because when it came to dancing he was really bad.”  After teasing from the other animals and an embarrassed departure from the party, a cricket helps Gerald realize he just needed to find the right music. An uplifting story full of alliteration and rhyming shows that true self-esteem comes from within.

The child is the center of this charming explanation of a family tree as the author cleverly portrays the child’s paternal line reading from front to middle and the maternal line backwards from back to middle.  While the text and images offer a multicultural view of an extended family, both the maternal and paternal lines follow only the patrilineal decent.  The human factor comes through in both the word choice and detailed illustrations making this book an engaging selection.

I occasionally find myself watching a television show about haunted houses. If you do too, then this might be the book for you.

I’m not saying one way or the other whether or not I believe in ghosts and that is the stand Kat Sinclair is taking also. As this book series begins, 13 year old Kat Sinclair and her father are off to travel the world with a “ghost hunting” TV show Kat’s father will be hosting. Kat’s grandmother ( a former horror movie actress) has given her a very expensive camera to take along  on Kat’s travels. Also, grandmother is requesting Kat start a blog about her travel experiences.

Kat tries to be objective, but “Suddenly, I felt ridiculous. One day with a bunch of ghost hunters and I was already buying into the whole paranormal activity thing. Still…” (p. 59) “So that made three weird glitches: the printer, the camera, and the laptop… I wasn’t ready to believe the glitches were all thanks to a restless spirit haunting the show, but at least now I had something to write about for my second blog post.” (p. 64)

The pace keeps building and the suspense with it as urban legends of haunted places in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and a prison in Brussels keep the reader racing across the pages. So fast paced, I suspended my skepticism in ghosts and took the actions for fact.

Warning! If you are squeamish over the mere mention  of a ‘tween being bullied for being gay, this is not the book for you. The bullying is mentioned early in the book, but the reason for the bullying isn’t revealed until p. 214 of  the 240 pages. And at this point in the series, it is only mentioned as a reason for the boy’s unfriendliness.

Warning! The book has a Ouija Board being used by two young people who believe in its powers.

It’s fine I guess.  The pictures are cute. The story is a bit flat, though.  It basically tells what a little mouse does when he comes up out of his hole in spring, summer, and autumn; but then when he pops out in winter he just goes back down and snuggles in, making use of the things he’s gathered in the other seasons.  The mouse is personified, making bread and soup and reading in his hole, but there’s nothing about it that makes the reader care especially, either about the mouse or about his adventures.

The girl in the sparkly tutu on the cover will be sure to draw a lot of readers, and the story will offer them a good lesson about giving new things a try.  Tallulah is excited about attending dance camp because she’ll get to enjoy her beloved ballet lessons every day, but she’s put out that campers are also expected to take tap lessons, too.  At camp she meets another girl who loves loves the tap classes but hates ballet, which Tallulah just can’t understand.  When the girls get to comparing notes it comes out that they both like the classes at which they excel, but have been turning their noses up at that which was a challenge.  Together they decide that maybe not being the best doesn’t mean they’re the worst either, and that’s okay.

Poet Brian P. Cleary has done it again! Twenty-eight limericks are hilariously shared with the reader together with the comical illustrations of Andy Rowland.

A great pasta maker named Freddy

cooked eight hundred pounds of spaghetti.

He carted it down

to the center of town,

rang a bell, and yelled, “Supper’s ready!”   ( p. 21)

Cleary begins the books with, “Limericks… are a short, rhyming, and nearly always funny form of poetry that tells a story, and they have a few simple rules.”  (p. 4)  Some of the rules talked about are number of lines and rhyme scheme, giving examples along the way.

Though the book’s title ( Something Sure Smells Around Here)  will grab readers’ attention, that limerick is my least favorite in this collection of limericks.