This sweet story begins, ” I’m  giant turtle, and I’m as BIG as an island.” Turtle is lonely in the big ocean until cat, bear, owl, and frog get shipwrecked on him, and he becomes their island home. They work together and are quite happy until cat, bear, owl, and frog decide to leave because they miss their families and friends. Turtle is at a loss. Turtle is lonely again. Then bear, cat, owl, and frog return with their families and friends. “This is how Turtle Island started… and how we continue to grow.”

Yes, the story is sweet, but it lacks pazazz .

For purposes of this review I examined the Farsi-English, Arabic-English, Russian-English, Turkish-English, Italian-English, and Portuguese-English volumes.  Each is designed with clean white pages and labeled photographs organized by category chapters: animals, human body, house, clothing & personal objects, etc.   The same photos are used in each volume, and each volume includes tables of contents, page headings, and indices in both languages, as well as the labels next to each photo being listed in both languages.  The English biases are revealed in that the index is alphabetized according to the English vocabulary; it would have been nice if a second index had been included where the vocabulary was alphabetized according to the other language.  It also would have been nice if a pronunciation guide had been offered for both languages, as only the spelling is included next to the pictures (although there is also a CD included with each volume).  They’re fun for curiosity’s sake, and could be useful in schools with a lot of foreign-languages spoken, as a way of getting some basic vocabulary across, but I’m not sure they are the most useful tools available.

It’s okay as a very introductory text, but the information is limited to a sentence or two per page.  On the front and back covers, and on the title page, the Spanish precedes the English, but on the internal pages, the English comes first.  It seems like it would have made more sense to be consistent one way or the other.  The Spanish is a good translation of the English, and it would make a good tool for beginning language learners of either language, but is less useful for teaching much about weather.

The information is shallow, and the graphics detract, rather than add:  the color photos of the birds in question are surrounded by lots of bright neon colors and patterns, sometimes to the extent of having had the natural backdrop of the bird edited out — it’s rather jarring and distracting, and just plain doesn’t seem to fit.

This is one of those instances (biographies of current sports stars or other celebrities of the day), when I figure it’s not really necessary to invest funds in the solid sturdy library binding:  a cheap paperback will probably last as long as their stardom, and by the time it wears out, there will likely be some other latest celebrity of the day.  I do have to admit the Lionel has a pretty good story (involved in soccer since age three, overcoming health concerns, giving back to his community…).   My biggest gripe with the book is the failure of the photos to support the text.  The first half of the book is talking about his childhood, but all the photos are of his adult soccer career:  the text is talking about when he was three or six or eleven, but the accompanying photo on that page is most definitely not a child — it doesn’t fit.

This is one of those bilingual books that definitely work better in English than in Spanish.  In English, it’s told in rhyming verse, listing different kinds of things that might make someone happy and how it might be expressed.  The translation does an adequate job of expressing the same ideas, but it looses the charm of the rhymes.  Double-page color photo spreads support the text, with lots of multi-cultural kids smiling away.

I have been consistently impressed with books in Scholastic’s True Book series, and this one is no exception.  The text is detailed enough to be truly engaging and informative, yet organized and clearly stated so as to be accessible to young readers.  Text is broken into reasonable chunks, in a large enough font so as not to be intimidating.  Diagrams and illustrations and photos support the text and catch readers’ attention/interest.  The graphics/layout support and attract without distracting.  My one gripe is one I’ve had with a lot of non-fiction books lately:  listing facts horizontally by date and calling it a time-line, even though nothing about the line represents the passage of time (everything is equally spaced, whether the events were separated by a year or three centuries).  All in all a solid choice.

First problem:  it’s a lift-the-flap book, and is not particularly sturdy in its construction, which makes it a poor choice for libraries.  Second problem, it’s definitely targeting the very youngest readers, which leaves it a limited audience in a school library.  The biggest problem is that it makes declarations that aren’t necessarily true: the first page says, “come with me to find out all the emotions we can feel!” but the range of human emotions is much more broad/complex than is going to be captured by a simple picture book; the page that describes anger states that if you take a breath and smell flowers then the next day you will feel really glad, but this presumes that all children’s issues are short-lived, which may not be true for some readers.  Yes, it’s a good idea to teach small children about emotions, and yes, the colors in this book are bright and eye-catching, but there are much better choices available:  This one is over-simplified and clunky.

It’s okay I guess.  The text is simple, as it is targeting young readers, and some of the information is so basic that kids don’t need to read it to know it (such as the fact that some jobs are inside and some jobs are outside).  It covers such ideas as needs/wants, the value of money, the differences between jobs that must be done by adults and jobs that kids can do, and mentions giving to charities as well.  It is illustrated with color photos and offers ideas of how some kids might earn money and what they might choose to do with it.  My gripe with this book is that it’s got a decidedly middle-class and up bias:  children who are living in poverty are not going to be paid by their parents to fold the laundry or wash the dog or rake leaves — they’re just going to be expected to help out around the family because it’s needed.  The last sentence of the book states, ” By earning money, kids can buy what they need, save for what they want, and still have money to share with others.” But really the rest of the book is operating under the assumption that kids are being provided with their needs.

A solid informational resource for students/families coping with asthma.  The information is detailed, well-organized and understandable.  It includes chapters that define asthma, discuss causes, diagnosis, treatments and prevention.  Illustrated with color diagrams, photos, microscopic enlargements, and drawings, the layout aids in making the information accessible.  I learned a lot.  Knowing how many children are affected by asthma, this book, or one like it, would be an important addition to any school library.