The Long Way Home is Book 2 in the series Family Tree by Ann M. Martin.  This series covers four generations of mothers and daughters, sisters and aunts…four different girls.

Book 2 is about Dana who loves loving in New York City. Yes, her twin sister, Julia, can get on her nerves.  And the heat in the summer can drive people a little crazy.  But it feels like she is in the heart of the world, and she is living to its beat.  Her father is a famous writer and takes her to parties most people can only read about in newspapers. It’s an exciting life.

Then things start to go wrong.  Dana’s father dies in a tragic accident, and Dana’s family must move to Maine for financial reasons.  Dana vows that it won’t be forever and somehow she will make her way back home to New York City.

There was enough suspense in every chapter to hold my attention and to draw me back to the book on my nightstand.  The setting is in the early 1950’s and Ms. Martin makes accurate reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Assassination of President Kennedy.

I look forward to ordering Books 1, 3 & 4 which will introduce Abby, Francie, and Georgia and the challenges they will face.  This is a family I’ll never forget.

Robots at Home is part of a series which features robots in various locations.  There isn’t a great deal of detail as to how they work or how they are programmed, but it’s basically a picture book showing the robot and telling what it does.  I kind of wondered if they can be customized, where to get one, how much they cost, etc., but I guess the target audience doesn’t ask those kinds of questions.   Some of the robots mentioned are familiar to students, such as the robot pet, the floor cleaner, and the wheelchair.

Goodnight Football is such an appealing books on many different levels.  First of all, the text is in rhyme, and clearly explains the different parts and players of the game.  Secondly, the illustrations are colorful and clear and not cluttered with unnecessary details. And, thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it is reminiscent of the classic children’s book Goodnight, Moon, in which the little boy (instead of bunny) says goodnight to all the football related items he’s seen that night.  This book is a terrific introduction to the game for those kids who aren’t so familiar with it and also for those kids who love the game.  How great to find a book in which football doesn’t depict violence and toughness.  This is a must purchase for all elementary school libraries.

2014 was the 100th anniversary of WWI. Author, illustrator Michael Foreman brings to readers a taste of what it was like in the trenches of the Western Front of France and Belgium through the eyes of his four uncles- WWI soldiers.

The young men of England were recruited to fight for “King and Country.” “As strange as it may seem today, football [soccer] played an important part in the First World War. It was used to recruit volunteers and to drive men on as they went ‘over the top’ into no-man’s-land; and it famously brought together the warring armies during the historic Christmas truce of 1914.” (page 78)

Young men who had never been away from home volunteered to fight. It would be an adventure, a chance to see the world. At first, it was parades and cheering later as the troops traveled toward the front line they encountered families fleeing the war zone and saw their first wounded troops. Eventually, they entered their life in the trenches: mud, little shelter, poor food, and firing on the Germans at dawn and dusk. Other than sentry duty, not much happened mid-day.

Enemy line could be as close as 30 yards away. Voices and the smell of food could drift in from the other side of no-man’s-land. And no-man’s-land often contained barbed wire, artillery crater holes, and dead bodies.

The war was not over by Christmas, as had been thought when the men were recruited.

Christmas Day of 1914 brought a quiet. Little by little, both sides came out of their trenches and buried their dead. Later, a Christmas tree was brought out, little gifts were exchanged, then a football [soccer ball] came out and the rest of the day was spent with both sides playing friendly, but crazy football  together.

In the days that followed, both sides saw troops moved to different parts of the front because how could the war continue to be fought if the enemies were so friendly towards each other.

In an Alaskan setting, the story of a 14-year-old dog sledder and a lost city boy collide. The dog sledder, Victoria Secord, and the city boy, Chris, are lost in the woods together after Chris has a snowmobile accident. Together the two of them and her dog sled team have to survive the cruel Alaskan night and the dangers of the wild forest to make it back to civilization before they both die.
This fast-paced novel will keep the reader wanting to know if the pair survived the night. Victoria is bullheaded and stubborn; if she puts her mind to it, she will do it. Chris is sensitive and doesn’t understand new surroundings very well. The author brings the characters to life making them very believable. This is a powerful story for those who enjoy reading survival or dog stories.
— Kellyn S.

A beautiful picture book, sharing the history behind the origins of ragtime music and the Charleston dance moves, this book also shares wider themes of turning bad into good and doing for others where you are able.  It tells of a pastor in the south at the end of the 19th century, who took in young boys and began an orphanage.  To drown out the noises from the nearby prison, he taught the boys music, and in order to earn money to support the orphanage (with dreams of someday buying a farm where the orphans could learn to support themselves), he took his band traveling.  They were so popular they were invited to England to play for King George V.  When WWI broke out, the Reverend Jenkins spent the band’s London earnings to help stranded Americans come home.  End notes in the back offer more detailed information about famous musicians who had connections to the Jenkins Orphanage Band, and how its influence spread.

I really love the illustrations, but the story leaves me a little flat.  It tells of a chicken who lives in a quiet yard on a quiet street, but is picked up on a strong wind one day and dropped into the big city.  After a day of exploring she takes a train and follows some pigeons back to her own yard, where she continues her normal life, with occasional trips on the train.  It’s fine, but it’s just kinda bland.

The illustrations are gorgeous! The story tells of a family reunion in Tanzania, with relatives visiting from America.  In celebration of the grandmother’s 85th birthday, the family goes on a safari together, ending at Bugamoyo, the remains of an old slave-trading post, where the father explains to the children the experiences of their ancestors.  The book ends as the American relatives prepare to return, but the family counts their blessings because they enjoy the freedom to travel back and forth, and Grandma reminds them all that even when they are apart, they are always under the same sun.  While sharing a common family theme of separation and coming together, the illustrations do a wonderful job of providing an authentic look at a distant land that would be foreign to most American students.

An inspiring tale, describing the author’s own experiences growing up as a stutterer.  He shares what it was like being misunderstood by well-meaning adults, his coping strategies, and his comfort being able to speak freely to animals.  All the extra time he spent with animals because of his stuttering led him to discover his passion, and a promise to be a voice for them some day, which eventually led to world travel as a zoologist and conservationist who convinced the prime minister of Belize to open the first jaguar preserve.

The first problem with this book is the biased scope of its coverage:  the title declares it to be about “History’s Most Troubled Eras,” but the other than the opening page about the middle ages, and the final page which mentions world-wide poverty and terrorism creating dangers today, every other era selected is directly tied to U.S. history, and we haven’t existed for most of history.  Even if the retitled to be about America’s most troubled eras, the selection of material is arbitrary: no mention of either of the world wars; the pages describing the dangers of exploration and colonial times don’t even mention the small pox that decimated Native American populations.  Finally, the surface level of information is so vague as to be mis-informative generalizations: it describes the cold war era as 1947-1991, and then goes on to claim that during the cold war students had nuclear raid drills, illustrated by a black-and-white photo from the 1950s.  As someone who grew up in the 1970s & 80s, I can tell you we never once had a nuclear raid drill at school.