With Adios Nirvana, Conrad Wesselhoeft takes readers into the chiaroscuro world of high school Junior Jonathan, writer/guitarist/seeker/mourner, whose twin brother has died after a skateboard accident. Deep grief and uncertainty about his own life and future places this lovable, warm, talented yet troubled youth on the path to either failure or success, and the unfolding of his journey captures, with a cast of interesting characters, the healing process that loving friends and music can provide when one deals with big themes like life and death. And there’s the Eddie Vedder Rickenbacker guitar, too.

Wesselhoeft paints Seattle perfectly from the weather to the streets, casting a mood that every Northwest inhabitant knows, moving Jonathan into the lives of people who need him, astound him, teach him, and ultimately lead him to find affirmation, a writing career, and the perfect musical moment.

It’s a great first book mixing music and magic with the everyday life of a kid seeing that every moment of light and dark is a miracle, despite evidence to the contrary.Life throws us curves.  To live through them, “The secret is to close your hand on jagged glass, then open it and find a butterfly.” Recommended.

This design of this book is an encyclopedia format, with pictures and captions about different categories of outer space.  This includes our sun, planets, earth, moon, space rocks, snowballs in space, our Milky Way Galaxy, and other galaxies.  There are small, condensed pieces of information while offering additional websites in the back, and other book recommendations.  This would make a nice additional book for a collection.

Tony Baloney is an animated penguin with human characteristics.  He is new to school and excited to be away from his bossy, older sister and mother and prove himself in the classroom.  Unfortunetly, Tony doesn’t understand the rules at school and makes many mistakes.  Luckily for him, he has his favorite stuffed animal friend with him.  It’s always good to have someone to talk to.

Recommended for primary readers and beginning chapter book readers.  Great illustrations, color, and formatting make this a charming book for students who have begun their school career!

Wonderful, larger sized picture book which will handle well when sharing with students!  Real photographs of the people, food, landforms and the great wall.  Three sentences per page/topic make this a great book to use with PrK-2 graders.  Facts. a glossary, intenet sites and an index are located in the back.  This review checked the websites and found a quality selection of the History Channel, National Geographic for Kids, and Fact Monster.  Although the history channel may be higher than the intended K-2 audience, it would give the teacher or parent background information about the book before sharing it.  Recommended for primary.

I was quite surprised to learn how far back actual stamped coins dated back.  I would not have thought that ancient civilizations would have had the ability to mine and melt precious metals, and then mint coins with words, dates, and images.  I am also amazed at how recently paper money has existed.  This book is full of interesting history about currency.  We all use money so it makes it relevant.

A reader’s perception of the book The Warrior’s Heart with will probably shape their overall feeling for this account about Eric Greitens.  All in all this is the story of Eric coming of age.  The first 130 pages detail the post high school education of Greitens, one that includes much more than his Duke and Oxford diplomas would entail.  Upon entering Duke on a scholarship, Greitens wanted to study “public policy” but it became quite clear that the focus in his studies would mean much more than just that.  Independent study grant opportunities would take him to China, Rwanda, Zaire and Bolivia.  His account reveals the first hand experiences with war, poverty, disease and death that most “public  policy” experts never get.  Back at school he sought to box for fun, learning a heck of a lot about honor and courage as well as the physical fitness that would prove essential in his future.  In his senior year he applied and received the coveted Rhodes scholarship that gave him full tuition to Oxford for graduate school.  But even that wasn’t enough.

The second half of the book details Greitens entry into the Navy’s Officer Candidate School and the Navy Seal’s Basic Underwater Demolition team.  For readers who just want the story of this training, they will find the first half of the book a bit to slog through.  But Greitens title is clear that the purpose of the book is to show how he became the man that he is and this man is not just the tough guy who can survive the brutal training and work of Navy Seals.  The reader that stays along for the ride will thoroughly enjoy all the mental and physical details Greitens provides for the latter 130 pages.

This is a well written book.  Readers will like the 2nd person rhetorical vignettes that proceed major decision points in his life asking them “What would you do?”  It’s no surprise that this is popping up on all the current lists of popular teen fiction.  For teens who are exploring the idea of being in the military in the future, and for anyone who wants a picture of Navy Seal training, this is a strong recommendation.

In this series, it seems that they have taken traditional fairy tales with human characters and substituted animals.  For me, personally, Little Red Riding Duck doesn’t seem to work.  One reason is that the large size of the wolf and the small size of the duck doesn’t make it as believable because, of course, when duck comes to gramma’s house the wolf is way too big to be mistaken for gramma.  Also, duck waddles out yelling, but wouldn’t you expect the wolf to be able to catch her easily.  The beaver, the woodcutter, is even smaller, but is still able to fend off the wolf.  For these reasons, it doesn’t work for me.  I would only read this version to preschoolers whom I don’t want to frighten.  Any older children would question the story.

Cats are smart, that’s for sure.  However, Suzy Baggots, the family cat, certainly knows how to get and do what she wants.  She jumps up and grabs food off of the table, piddles in golf bags, poos in chairs, tears up furniture and curtains, and gets hair all over everything.  And still she doesn’t get tossed out of the house.  Then one day, Suzy stops eating, stops drinking, and lies listlessly on the bed.  The family is beside themselves with grief and sadness, anticipating the worst.  If the family knew it was all a ploy, the worst would happen to Suzy.  But it’s all a lesson for the family to realize how much they love her.  Lets just hope that the kids who read this book aren’t as smart as cats and won’t try the same thing.

Jim Murphy and Alison Blank have put forth a wonderful account of the history of Tuberculosis in Invisible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-ending Search for a Cure.  They begin with “This is the story of a small, harmless germ that has been infecting people for millions of years.”  But once a reader gets into the first chapters of the book, they will no longer look at TB as a harmless germ.  Through the author’s chronicling of its history — how people felt and lived with a germ they didn’t even know was causing their symptoms for thousands of years, to its mass spread largely due to living conditions in the industrial revolution, to the concoctions and treatments used to try to heal the sick — students could gain a large respect for the generations that died, sometimes in horrific ways, trying to solve the mystery of the germ and for the researchers who are still working to make sure TB outbreaks are rare.  A large amount of ground is covered with detail in the book’s 150 pages, but the text is so smoothly written and on spot for a middle school and high school audience with its tone of TB being such a medical mystery.  Images, both historical pictures and other drawings/graphs are scattered about to break up and enlighten the text.  This is also such a great source because the generations that witnessed the debilitating effects and epic death counts from this germ are themselves passing on.  The current generations need to be aware and vigilant to keep the disease at bay for as long as humanly possible.  Highly recommended for high school and public libraries, especially at its $18.99 price.

Superstar book authors on getting into Ivy league schools have pulled together great advice on hitting a grand slam with the Standford application essay in this book.  The first chapter gives 25 mistakes to avoid when writing the essay, most of which would apply to any college admission essay.  But then the fun starts where Tanabe interviews former Stanford admission officers for their personal advice on how to do well with specific questions on the essay.  The remaining 2/3 of the book are actual essays written by students with an analysis afterwards.  If Stanford is the goal for any particular student, then this is the book for them.  Highly recommended for any high school library or career center.