“Some kids collect baseball cards.  Some collect action figures.  Me?  I collect fractions.”  In this math adventure, our narrator, whose name is never revealed, uses a Reducer (1/2 ray gun and 1/2 calculator) to reduce fractions to their lowest terms, which is needed to help solve the mystery of a stolen, disguised fraction…that he wants for his personal collection.   The Reducer, for example, exposes the fraction 12/20 and discovers that it is still 3/5.  Colorful and comical, animated illustrations add to the zany romp of a story…sure to interest students in any lesson on simplifying fractions.  I would not call this an introduction to simplifying fractions, as a novice may lose the math thread without some prior knowledge about the process, before reading the story.  However, it would make a great formative assessment for kids who have already practiced the simplifying process.  The Back Matter includes one page of explanation on the reduction of fractions.

A gentle and calm journey through the seasons, debut author, Sid Farrar’s little haiku vignettes describe the changes in our natural world across the months of the year.  Starting in winter with…

“Each window pane’s a

masterpiece, personally

signed:  Your Friend, Jack Frost”

and coming full circle to end with winter.  Snowmen, robins, dandelions, tadpoles, fireflies, corn, apples, pumpkins, brown bear and skunk all play a part in the twelve month cycle of poems.  Young and old can appreciate the literary images presented.  Each two page spread highlights one haiku beautifully illustrated with soft colored pencil and watercolor by Ilse Plume (Caldecott Honor 1981 – The Bremen TownMusicians).  Included in the back matter is an explanation of what a haiku is.  Also the The Cycle of Life is explained, as well as a commentary on each season.  What a lovely addition to your poetry collection.

“This story is one of the most ancient and commonly told in Inuit history. In Alaska, Canada, Greenland, or Russia– wherever there are Inuit– this story is told.” (p. 2)

Author- illustrator, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril’s  artwork is amazing in its shading from light to dark, greys to blacks, and ever deepening blues help set the stage for this story from the far, far north where darkness reigns for months at a time.

A mother’s grief over the loss of her husband turns dark and cruel as she blinds her son. In the spring, at lake’s edge, the loon helps the blinded boy regain his sight by diving deeply in the lake with him three times. Come summer with the boy having such fun harpooning beluga whale his mother wants to join the fun. In revenge, the boy ties the harpooning rope around his mother in such a way she goes into the water after the whale. There in the water’s depths the mother’s hair braid eventually becomes the horn of the narwhal she becomes.  “Today, the narwhal will forever be a reminder that every act of revenge is a link in a chain that can only be broken by forgiveness.” (p. 40)

One hundred animals parade across the front to the back cover of this book! So the parade has begun even before the reader opens the book. What a parade it is! Inside the book the parade continues with 100 whimsical bears, followed by 100 pigs, followed by 100 carpenter beetles, 100 rabbits, and 100 birds snaking their way over and around the pages. [Yes, there are 100 of each, I counted them all.] The first animal on each left hand page after the page-turn says what number he is in the parade. There are often conversation bubbles telling the reader (or counter) the number in line of that particular animal. The number always ends in a zero, but not all numbers ending in zero have a conversation bubble. Some of the parade  members ask questions along the way, too,  like, “Can you see a carrot?” (p. 5)  So a “Where’s Waldo?” aspect is added to the story.  At the end of the parade the animals are jostled together at the “Animal Festival!”

The very last page states,” There’s a snail, a ladybug and an ant in every scene. Find them all!”

Fifteen different football poses can be created by you, the reader, by following the visual steps in this book. First the reader should gather the 6 supplies listed on the opening page: blank unlined paper, pencils, erasers and pencil sharpener for sure, followed by black ink pen and colored pencils or markers, if you like.

Each of the fifteen poses is accompanied by an exciting sports commentary scenario in the left sidebar. “MAKING the PASS You drop back to pass and see an open receiver downfield. You’ll have to fire off the pass before you get sacked!” ( p. 4) Now a 5 step process of drawing the described scene starting with a simple stick figure begins. Each of the following steps is layered in black lines over the previous steps gray lines. There are NO written descriptions of the sequential drawing steps, but a good eraser ( from the list of supplies on p. 3) is used between steps. Following these drawing steps is similar to doing one of those picture puzzles where you must find what has been changed from one picture to the other. The completed full page black and white drawing of a detailed football pose from Step 5 is superimposed over an NFL full color backdrop photo. [ Some of the NFL teams in the background include: the Falcons, Colts, Saints, and Chargers.] Each pose has 4 complete pages devoted to it from start to finish.

Step1 -stick figure

Step 2- muscular body around the stick figure

Step 3- helmet, padding, shoes, knee joints

Step 4- more detail added

Step 5 – final uniform detail, perhaps facial details

This is Book 5 in the Zapato Power series. Freddie isn’t sure if his super-powered sneakers will work in the snow of the March blizzard, but he soon finds out they do. Super fast Zapato (shoe- in Spanish) power clears a path in the snow to all the apartments in his complex. Then Freddie cheerfully helps Mr. Vaslov, the apartment manager, by clearing a path in the snow to the school where the people of Building D have been evacuated to the gym because the furnace in Building D isn’t working.  Then, someone has robbed mean Erika’s abuela’s purse while they are temporarily camped out in the school gym. After the police come to investigate the missing purse, Freddie uses his ‘super sneakers’ to snoop (by bouncing high enough to look in through the windows) in 3 suspect houses near the school of the stolen purse. Then Freddie and his friend Maria set a trap for the purse thief using Maria’s giant pink purse. Maria’s pink purse is also stolen from the gym, but not before guacamole has been accidentally spilled onto it. Freddie is able to track the thief by following the green globs of guacamole in the snow. When Freddie catches up to him Freddie runs circles around him. “Just like a snowplow, I pushed enough snow to lock him into a snow jail.” (p. 80)  The police come to arrest the thief. The following morning when the children go sledding, Erika is kinder to Freddie and his friends because “” ‘ I owe you one’  she said…” for helping her abuela.

Miguel Benitez’s numerous black and white full-page, half-page, and quarter-page  illustrations help carry the text as it flows smoothly forward carrying the reader along with it.

Tallulah goes to dance school, but now her dream of being in a real ballet with a “real ballet company in  a real theater” has come true. The rehearsals take up most of her time, she lets everyone know it, and soon comes opening night. Tallulah overcomes her nervousness, but creates a domino effect on stage when she steps on another mouse’s tail. Down they fall. Later, off-stage the dance master, Clara, and the Sugar Plum Fairy all recount their own past on stage ballet mishaps. Now feeling better “the dance master, ‘in ballet, embarrassing things happen all the time, but a REAL dancer keeps right on dancing. And that’s just what you did…’ ”         Happy ending.

PJ is a 5th grader who believes his father is a private investigator away on assignment. The story is a series of PJ’s letters he writes to his father telling the events of his life. PJ decides to make a magnetic pickle for the school science experiment, hoping to win first place. However, the first place trophy turns up missing and PJ is accused of taking it. Although misfortune follows PJ wherever he goes, PJ decides he must solve the mystery. This book is written in the same style of Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. This book is quite silly which kids will love!

Nino, a little firefly, talks to his mom about his dream to shine as bright as the moon to earn the respect of all the other jungle animals. Well, the moon overheard this conversation and decided to help out by asking Nino if Nino could cover for him one night so he could take a break. Nino calls all the fireflies together to gather as one producing a very big, bright light as they slowly rose in the sky together. The fireflies, working as a team shone brighter than the brightest moonlight. The animals were amazed. Two morals of this story exist, follow your dreams, and together anything is possible! Beautiful illustrations increase the attraction of this book with gold foil “lights” on each firefly.

This informational book introduces the mystery of why the little brown bats were dying in large numbers. The book continues with investigations of pesticides, climate changes and virus as possibilities. White fuzz was found to grow on the infected bats’ noses. This was determined to be a fungus. Is the fungus to blame? The little brown bats start to help themselves through this issue. Great, detailed photos accompany each page spread. Each photo is related to the information found on its page. I especially am pleased with the high number of women scientist involved in the investigation as well as in the photos. This book contains a table of contents, an author’s note, bat facts page, bat help efforts page, a glossary, an index and further research page.