Who is the man who became the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church on March 19, 2013?  This Gateway Biography introduces us to Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, elected to the papacy and the first non-European pope in more than 1200 years.  He is the first Jesuit to be elected as well as the first pope to choose the name Francis.  This biography follows Pope Francis from his days as a young chemist to his studies of theology.  Not only does the reader learn of his beliefs, but also of his hobbies – including his interests in soccer and tango dancing.  The true story behind the man is fascinating!  The Lerner Publications Company produces a quality product from the binding to the colored photos.

Allen Say is the author and illustrator of numerous award-winning picture books.  In this book The Favorite Daughter Mr. Say shows us a side of himself that we may not have yet seen.  This is an inspiring tale of the love between a father and daughter…possibly Allen Say and his own daughter??  Yuriko has always been happy with her name, and she always loved to make art.  When a new art teacher calls her “Eureka” by mistake, all the kids laugh. That makes her want to change who she is. And stop doing what she used to love.  But when you run away from the things that make you “you” how do you find your way home?  Yuriko’s father doesn’t have all the answers, but he does know how to help Yuriko find them herself.  The author has a delightful sense of humor.

What a beautiful, sentimental story!  A granddaughter is staying with her grandpa when he suffers a stroke.  She follows the emergency vehicle to the hospital in her mother’s car and visits her grandpa as he slowly recovers in the hospital.  Grandpa recovers but can no longer live alone.  This could have been a scary story for a young child, but the softness of the illustrations and the tender words made this a book I would not hesitate reading to a group of children.

In A Note To Readers, Newbery Award winner Joyce Sidman ( Dark Emperor) pulls us in…”We may no longer believe that words can make crops grow, prevent illness, or keep rivers from flooding.  But we still believe in the power of the words themselves.  Why else would we pray, sing, or write?  Finding phrases to match the emotion inside us still brings an explosive, soaring joy.”  These 29 thoughtful, brief poems bolster courage, encourage something to happen, help us remember, regret, and grieve, as well as celebrate thank or express love.  Chant to Repair a Friendship is a beautiful invitation to reconciliation.  Starting Now rallies us all to act in the face of injustice, and Lament for Teddy honors our regret in thinking we had outgrown our beloved cuddle bear.  We need poetic forms to express our emotions.  Thank you, Joyce Sidman!  Thank you, too, to Caldecott Honor winner, Pamela Zagarenski, whose exquisite illusrations capture the text and symbolism of each poem.

Sullivan Mintz is the type of kid you don’t notice.  He’s a perfect target for a bully.  Plus, he lives in an old folks’ rest home with his younger sister that his parents run.  Not such of an exciting life.  Until one night when he sees a traveling show performing in a field.  He and his sister, Jinny, go and watch and Sullivan is mesmerized by the acts put on by kids around his own age.  He is drawn back a second time, during which Master Melville invites him for a third visit.  He lies to his parents and sneaks out to the show and during an act where a volunteer from the audience is required, Sullivan comes up and is put into a box and disappears.  He is given something, I’m not quite sure, to make him sleep and when he awakens he finds himself in the coach with the other kids quite far from home.  That’s how easy it was to kidnap him.  He also becomes a performer and his lame attempt at escape is foiled.  Ginny and an eighty-one-year-old guest of the rest home, Manny, go on a quest trying to find clues as to his whereabouts.  Life is no longer so boring, people actually listen to him and care about him now.  He finds that if he were to go back home, he’d miss his new family and friends.  I thought this book was well written and had great characterization.  The only fault I would find with is the book jacket art.  It seems to imply that the story takes place a long time ago when it’s actually a contemporary story.

Eight year old, Danny and Josh are twins. Danny and Josh have crawled under their backyard fence to retrieve their dog Piddle from Miss Potts. Piddle is inside a secret lab in the back of Miss Pott’s shed. As they leave the lab/ shed, Josh and Danny are sprayed with a yellow liquid. They go to wash it off , but they begin to shrink in the bathtub. Then, the twins turn into spiders. Their sister chases them down the bathtub drain and turns on the water. Now in the sewer, Josh and Danny meet up with two rats, Scratch and Sniff.  Scratch and Sniff are the ones who help Josh and Danny understand what has been happening to them because Miss Potts is a “mad scientist.”  Scratch and Sniff explain S.W.I.T.C.H.* stands for Serum Which Instigates Total Cellular Hijacks. One of the previous altered insects eventually changed back to its original form, but most get eaten before that happens. THEN, Josh is stuck to a long pink tongue. Josh escapes from the toad’s tongue and from a bird , before the twins get caught by Miss Potts in a jar. Miss Potts gladly changes them back into boys because she wants to know what it is like to be a spider. Josh and Danny want nothing to do with her.

Books 2-6 continue with Danny and Josh morphing into different critters: bluebottle houseflies, grasshoppers, ants, crane flies, and beetles.

*The back cover has the “I” in S.W.I.T.C.H. standing for ‘Initiates’.

P. 86, line 12- has an error in word order.(And don’t you ever come over our to side!)

Ross Collins artwork reminds me of that done in the original HOMER PRICE.

Includes web sites for National Geographic Kids and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The Introduction to Raven Pass is reminiscent of the classic introduction of “THE TWILIGHT ZONE”. It put you on edge and makes your skin crawl.

A middle school math test is about to begin. Three friends,  Jimmy with a C-, Mia, and Andrew with a perfect A grade, have just decided to cheat. Their teacher ” Mrs. Huckle won’t catch us.” The following day, Mrs. Huckle is absent, but her substitute teacher, Mr. Smith, returns their test papers. The three friend each get an A, “no one else got better than a C.” Mr. Smith is creepy in speech, appearance, and action.

Saturday night while Andrew is doing math homework, his book attacks him before bursting into flames. Mia is watching a horror movie by herself, when the movie changes to a different B&W show in which Mr. Smith is cooking a dinner for guests. Mr. Smith goes into the kitchen to pull a burnt roast out of the oven, but instead, it is Mia’s head. Jimmy is practicing his electric guitar.  The guitar and amp shock Jimmy and then the amp booms with increasingly louder and louder feedback.  The three friends decide they most confess to put an end to the creepiness of Mr. Smith. Andrew gets to Mrs. Huckle’s house first and confesses. It turns out Mrs. Huckle began all of this mess by reciting a spell to get a fair deal for her car repair, in which she feels she was cheated.

Mr. Smith prevents Mia and Jimmy from arriving at Mrs. Huckle’s house to confess. “We’re going to confess,” said Jimmy. “we’re going to tell her we cheated on the math exam, so she can forgive us. Then you can go back to whatever dimension you came from.”

All, but two chapters, have a full page B&W illustration, which definitely adds to the creepiness!

Includes: 3 Discussion Questions and 3 Writing Prompts.

An ominous cover greets the reader with a close-up of an apple green pupil in an eye surrounded by truly black eyelashes and skin.

“…when I started feeling the hunger. It came like a punch in the gut… I was like an animal tearing its kill apart.”  Thus, readers are hooked by author Alan Gibbons opening chapter.

16 year old John has been bitten in the neck drawing blood outside the school dance ,by Beth. “That night the hunger began… and the dreams.” Mrs. Fletcher, the French teacher, is found dead. “They’d found blood on the driver’s seat of her car and more leading away from it, towards the woods.” John’s hunger is all consuming when it comes. The thinking part of John fades away. The hunger and thirst rules him. When John’s girlfriend, Andrea, invites him to a party the night of the next full moon he thinks, “There’s nothing to worry about, nothing at all,”  or so he hopes. But then Beth implies John watched her kill Mrs. Fletcher in his crazy dream. Slowly it dawns on John that Beth wants to feed on Andrea. Beth and John fight each other as snarling wolves. John kills Beth. Then John leaves his hometown forever to protect “the ones I love”.

Recommended for high/low readers, but this book will be enjoyed by all.

The 21st Mr. Putter & Tabby beginning chapter book.

Good friends and neighbors, Mr. Putter and Mrs. Teaberry are going to try out something new for them- ballroom dancing, even thoughMr. Putter has reservations about it. They give it a try. All have a fun time.