Willa’s story begins like an ideal family.   With a blended family from two separate economical situations, her stepfather Jack and his ex-wife seemed to want to ‘do what’s best for the girls’ – the ‘girls’ being Willa’s two stepsisters. Willa, the main character, slowly explains the real story.

Willa lives with her mother, stepfather, and two stepsisters. Always feeling left out, Willa cuts herself to relieve the stress she feels in her home. Willa’s mother has worked hard to give her a good family life, but her past comes back to haunt her. Willa’s biological father murders his current wife and their children and is coming for Willa, but he is caught and killed by the police. The horrible deaths of her family shakes Willa’s world and she is not sure who she is anymore.  With this the family explodes going separate ways.

Willa goes in search of herself when she travels to Texas to attend the funeral of her sisters and there she meets her brother.  During this story Willa learns heartache and truths about her family.  She learns to be thankful for what she has but also how to stand up for what she needs.  The story ended in a good place and made the reader feel like Willa would go on to be a well-rounded person because of her experiences.  It made me think it could be real.

– review by Jodie T.

Henwyn is a cheese-maker’s son who isn’t so adept at making cheese, but longs for heroic adventure.  After being left in charge of cheese making and making a total mess of things, Henwyn is kicked out of his village.  He strikes out looking for Princess Elunid, of whom he has heard was captured by a giant and aims to rescue her.  The stories he heard of her were decades old and she isn’t the young princess she once was.  Henwyn hooks up with Skarper, a goblin who was also tossed out of his clan, and together they make plans to break into a fortress which was long ago boarded up by an evil king but is said to contain riches beyond the imagination.  Fighting goblins and boglins, they both find the adventure they’ve only dreamed of.  Lots of action and clever twists, and the ending quite different than expected.  There aren’t any illustrations but the descriptions Reeve has given are more than enough to paint a vivid  picture in the reader’s mind.

Author, Roland Smith, brings his Crypid Hunters saga to a conclusion with this the fourth book in the series. It begins with a recap of the characters, followed by “The Crypid Hunters Saga so Far…”  which is wonderful, if you, like me, have been waiting for a year between book publications.

The revelation of the previous books’ unanswered questions takes place over the course of five days. Day one finds Marty, Grace, Ted, Dylan, Wolfe, and Luther all heading down to the jaguar preserve in the Amazon to finally locate Marty’s lost parents after their helicopter crash. On day two, we are introduced to FBI Agent Crow (from Sasquatch , copyright 1998) who hitches a ride on the trip down river to the jaguar preserve. Meanwhile, Wolfe heads out into the forest looking for the helicopter crash sight and is captured by three indigenous blow pipe carrying natives. Day three finds Luther looking for some fun on the edge of the jaguar preserve when he, also, is captures by three indigenous blow pipe carrying natives. Down river Noah Blackwood has given Yvonne and her three mercenaries the go ahead to kill Ted and Crow making it look like an accident. By day four, Luther finds himself in a guarded native hut with Wolfe looking for possible ways to escape, which doesn’t seem likely, as they are unfamiliar with their forest surroundings. Meanwhile, Marty, Grace, and Dylan misdirect Yvonne and her crew away from them by using newly found tracking devices which Marty has attached to his dragonfly robot. Then Marty, Grace, and Dylan track down the dinosaur hatchlings so Noah can’t get his hands on them for his private collection of exotic animals and crypids. And finally on day five, Noah Blackwood’s secrets reveal him to be linked back to a World War II research facility deep in the Amazon rainforest. There Noah has been cloning people : natives, his daughter(s), and himself in a bunker which Marty’s parent stumbled upon (three books ago) and their helicopter shot down to keep it a secret. Marty’s develops a plan to rescue Wolfe and Luther from the bunker by having Grace, Dylan, and the hatchlings ‘accidentally’ get captured and taken into the bunker so that he can learn the gate code to the electrified fence surrounding the bunker using the dragonfly bot. More twists follow, but the reader will be pleased with the ending.

In this day and age of urban and apartment living, the best part of this 11.25″ X 9.5″ book might just be the photos showing how immense farms can be.  The canned and frozen corn in the grocery store comes from fields in Minnesota (and other states). The wheat in your bread comes from North Dakota, cotton from Georgia, and oranges from California.

Each of these four crops has four pages devoted to it. The two  left pages are full-page photos of the crop itself and then the crop being harvested. While on the right page states the farms’ location and what the crop is used for is stated in 2 or 3 sentences per page.

This book is presented in several levels. Across the top of each page (which appears to be old parchment paper) in hand-script type is the author’s telling of Geronimo’s life story as if written by Geronimo in a journal (hence, the book series title – Hero Journals). Another level consists of actual Geronimo quotes set in italics, yet another level of actual photographs with captions set in an old typewriter looking font, another of modern pencil  drawings, and 6 ‘Document It’ insets instructing the reader how to create their own journal.

The reader comes away with a well rounded view of Geronimo’s life in chronological order from childhood, which includes aspects of daily Apache life and culture.

” Since the 1850s, more and more white settlers have come to Arizona. We traded with them peacefully at first, but after gold miners started to attack us, we raided their settlements, too. The U.S. troops were already wary of us. The tensions eased during the Civil War, beginning is 1861, because all the troops disappeared east to fight their own people. But now they are returning in greater numbers, and life is getting tougher for the Apaches.” ( p. 26) This taken from Geronimo’s supposed journal. While it is well written, there are definite terms an Apache of this time period would not have used: Arizona, 1850s, and Civil War. While I understand why the author did this, I hope young readers do not confuse the ‘journal’ enters with Geronimo’s actual words.

Geronimo is presented as a warrior fighting to preserve his peoples’ way of life. “When Geronimo surrendered, General Miles agreed that the Apaches would be allowed to return to their home in Arizona after two years as prisoners. But the U.S. government held them as prisoners of war for 27 years, and their lands were taken. The Apaches were not charged with any crimes and had no chance to plead their innocence in courts of law.”  ( p. 35)

Abdo’s Checkerboard Animal Library is a favorite of my students.  In this series, many breeds are discussed where you learn exciting and interesting facts.  The full-color photos and easy-to-read-text make it quite user friendly.  Each book explains information about the dog family, in general.  We learn, in this text, that Portuguese Water Dogs were bred to work on fishing boats, helping fishermen catch fish, by “herding” fish into nets.  They also help retrieve lost fishing gear.  Answers to questions about what they are like, their coat and color, size, care, feeding, etc…are covered in each of the two-page spread sized chapters.  President Obama and his daughter, are featured walking their Portugese Water dog, Bo.  Back Matter includes Glossary, Websites, and Index.

The title is long, but the cover design is different enough to attract your attention, reminiscent of a time gone by.  Inside are 30 unique fairy tales each accompanied  by either a colored or black and white illustration.  The fairy tales are quite humorous and the illustrations are colorful and finely detailed.  I wish there was some biographical information about Terry Jones, because I had never heard of him before.  But I am guessing he must be a storyteller extraordinaire and story collector.

Sammy is new to the school, small for his age, and Jewish.  This makes him a prime target for the gang of bullies in the school.  He gets his head held in the toilet, made to do the bullies’ homework and intimidated and threatened on a daily basis.  School isn’t so fun for him.  Then a new boy, Skink, starts school and as the bullies approach him ready to show him who is boss, Skink surprises them all by standing up to them, as well as befriending Sammy.  This is Sammy’s first friend and he couldn’t be happier.  Sammy’s Jewish religion means that Sammy must attend Hebrew school studying for his Bar Mitzvah, which is a rite where basically he ‘becomes a man.’  His rabbi tells a story of Golem, made of clay, powered by God, to stand as protector of the Jews when faced with death.  Sammy can’t get the idea of a Golem out of his mind and how useful that would be to use against the bullies.  Sammy’s dad is a potter, so Sammy has access to lots of clay needed to build a Golem, which he does, and calls Gully.  Gully goes to school with him and protects him and life is good for Sammy and his friends.  The rabbi knows that Sammy has created a Golem and pleads with him to destroy him before the Golem destroys him.  If you have any interest in learning about religion, then this is the book for you.  There are many enjoyable moments in this book, such as the developing friendships, the witticism, and the power of the music, and, just plain growing up and learning to take responsibility for your actions.  That’s what makes Sammy a man.

This story would make an excellent movie!  The ‘flower girls’ are three 11-year-old triplets, sister of the bride, who believe their sister is making the biggest mistake of her life.  Their sister, Lily, is about to marry a guy she hasn’t been dating long and doesn’t know so well, but more importantly, doesn’t make their sister happy.  The wedding arrangements are totally taken over by the groom’s mother, who ignores any wishes Lily has for HER wedding.  Enraged, the triplets contact Lily’s former boyfriend, who has returned to town for the summer from college, and invite him to the wedding hoping the sight of him will bring Lily back to her senses.  The lengths the girls will go through to stop the wedding are hilarious.

I get some of the best books from Australia, and this is another one.  Machine Wars is about machines with artificial intelligence warring against humans.  The head machine goes rogue and begins warfare with its creator.  This robot, called Ahriman, thinks for itself, builds actual destructive weapons and is able to learn as it makes mistakes.  He builds soldier robots, drones, is able to hack into computer systems to locate people and to transmit misleading information, such as putting out APB’s on its creators family members and friends.  Its goal is to control the world and projects its persona onto a hologram in order to control people.  The concept is new and refreshing.  Apparently you’d have to be a total genius to understand how A.I. works, so the author doesn’t bother to explain; you just have to accept that it does what he says it does.  The story does start to drag a bit after the main character, Bram, and his friend, Stella, have to continually keep running to keep safe from Ahriman.  Their job is to keep Ahriman distracted while  Bram’s mother, the genius creator of Ahriman, finds a way to disable him.  A great adventurous, exciting read.