An odd little story:  a kid’s in a store where he’s not supposed to touch anything, so he pretends to be a silkworm, crawling around on the floor to pretend he’s in a cocoon; and then he accidentally breaks a bunch of figurines, getting a bump on his head in the process; he gets in trouble for breaking the stuff because no one believes that he didn’t touch them, an no one pays attention to his bump; later that night he overhears his mom break a vase after he’s supposed to be in bead, and his dad tells her not to worry because it could happen to anyone; then the kid dreams that the figurines all tell him, “It could happen to anyone,” and put ice on his bump.  It seems like the stories this publisher puts out are all trying very hard to make a point, but they never really seem to hit the mark, or to make the reader care.  Maybe they’re losing something in translation, as I believe they were all originally published in other languages.

Rather than a re-telling of the original nursery rhyme, this delightfully illustrated adaptation uses variations on the first line to create a new rhyme describing different animals playing different instruments.  A great addition to support the music curriculum, as well as useful in teaching rhyme and verbs.  And just plain fun.

The illustrations are nice, but the story line is really intended for preschool audiences.  There’s not really enough of a plot to capture the attention of school-aged kids.  It basically tells of the little toy train taking the other toys to their chosen destinations around the house, including sound effects like chug chug and quack quack.

The design of the book makes it very definitely a book with an elementary school target audience, but most of the photos used to illustrate the text show teenagers, and the text itself is presumptuous, first and foremost about assuming that the readers’ school offers dance groups I’ve usually only seen at the secondary level, and then too about assuming how those groups will conduct themselves (what to expect at tryouts, etc), yet not all school groups (when they do exist) operate the same way. All in all, a rather ill-conceived book.

It’s your basic what-it’s-like-when-parents-divorvce book: a small girl describing how things used to be different, but when mom and dad started fighting they decided they needed two homes, and she lives in both, and sometimes she misses the parent she’s not with, but she can always talk to them on the phone, etc. Every library needs to have something like this, and if you need one, this is a good one — very matter-of-fact and nicely illustrated — but I don’t know that it’s any better than others along the same line if you’ve already got one.

Whereas most chameleons like to blend in, Chamelia likes to stand out.  She tries so hard to stand out that some of her efforts lead to problems: fancy outfits that get caught in the school bus doors, high heels that fall off during her soccer game, friends who don’t appreciate her creative costuming for the class play.  In the end she decides it’s okay to join in some, too, and to look for more subtle ways to express her individuality.  The illustrations reflect the substance of the story by showing all the other chameleons in soft pastels and Chamelia in vibrant prints.

Be careful what you wish for. Annabelle is tired of ordinary birthday parties so she talks her parents into letting her have her birthday party on the moon, but discovers this leads to all sorts of problems:  it takes too long to get there, they can’t light the candles on the cake since there’s no oxygen, the kids can’t eat the cake through their space helmets, etc. In the end she decides next year she’ll have a down-to-earth party instead.  Charming illustrations.

This book sends an absolutely horrid message to children — that they are not accountable for their own actions — that anytime they feel like doing something mean they can just blame it on their “Little Troublemaker.” It’s out of their control; they can’t help it; it’s not their fault.  Ugh! Plus it’s nauseatingly pink.

The illustrations are really quite fun and unique and interesting.  Unfortunately, the story does not live up to them. It’s kind of long and rambling and underdeveloped.  It starts with a mean and cranky pet shop owner with a shop full of sad animals; when a local girl goes in to rescue her rabbit which somehow ended up inside, she lets all the animals loose, and the mean owner won’t go after them because he’s too vain to go out without his wig; overcome with loneliness without his animals, the shop owner turns to creating stuffed animals and all the free animals come back to help and they’re all happy.  But there’s nothing in the telling of it that actually makes the reader care.

The glittery cover and the cartoon-like illustrations will capture readers’ attention, and it’s got a good message about the true value of grades — after much hoping and wishing for straight As, Louise learns that the value of the grade is diminished when it’s given out too freely and finds she’s happier with Bs from a teacher who really pushed her to do her best.  The only problem is that so many elementary schools no longer use letter grades; some students may find themselves puzzled.