With lyrical text the reader follows a interconnected path from the base of the mountain into the cabin of a Cherokee family where in the kitchen sits a grandma weaving. As the family gathers round, the singing and the weaving unite them and create a bridge to a young woman flying an airplane in a distant conflict. Her prayers for peace in turn link her with her family back in the cabin. The circular story and illustrated threads both add to the feeling of unity and connection.

The author’s note recognizes the role of Native American women in the United States Armed Forces. She highlights the accomplishments of Ola Mildred “Millie”Rexroat, a Oglala Lakota pilot who served as a Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) in World War II and beyond.

Leila and her family arrive her Naani’s (grandmother) house for an extended family dinner. When Leila looks in Naani’s mirror she thinks, “I’m not sure if I like being me.” Over the course of the evening, Leila finds things about herself to like. She shares her aunt’s smile, recognizes the beauty of her Pakistani artistic heritage, and successfully helps with cooking the curry. Finally when it is time to leave, her Naani helps her try on a saffron scarf. Reflected in the mirror, Leila now sees a beautiful girl looking back at herself.

A sweet story about recognizing the beauty found in connections to family and tradition as well as the beauty from within.

The colorful illustrations have a folk-art feel. Endpapers include a glossary of ethnic terms with definitions and pronunciation, but does not include language of origin.

Once Upon an Eid is an amazing collection of short stories by Muslim authors that celebrate the intersection of the modern Muslim childhood and the powerful meaning and significance of Eid. Many of the stories approach this special time for Muslims with typical childhood experiences like cooking disasters, experiencing firsts, impatience for presents, facing loss, siblings, and feeling different. With the characters’ growth, large and small, the tears, frustrations, insecurity, and heartache resolve into the peace, joy and hope of Eid.

The majority of the offering are in the form of prose short stories, but the book also includes two stories in verse and one in graphic novel format. A definite middle grade first purchase for all libraries.

Be Bold provides a kid friendly approach to bravery. The book starts by defining bold and gives examples that a child would understand; talk to a new kid, stop a friend from saying something mean, or admitting a mistake. It also reminds students that true heroes are smart about not taking unnecessary risks that might put themselves or other in danger.

• To help children develop boldness, the book provides suggestions.
  • Baby steps – break scary task into small parts and face them one at a time.
  • Be adventurous – be open to new experiences
  • Let yourself fail – and learn from your mistakes
  • Know when to say no – when either you or someone else might be hurt
  • Do your research – understanding can make things less scary
  • Believe in yourself – be confident and proud of who you are

The book concludes by asking the reader how a bold hero might react in three situations.

The specific suggestions, child appropriate scenarios, and connection to superheroes makes this a good choice for young children. Share individually or as part of a class lesson to encourage children to be bold and courageous in the face of new or scary things.

I would have liked to see the book also remind young children that asking for help does not mean your are not brave.

This title introduces readers to the process of photosynthesis with large colorful photographs and simple clear text. The reader is first informed that photosynthesis makes life on earth possible. The book then explains the role of plants and sun in this process followed by an explanation of the steps in the process. The book concludes by placing the process of photosynthesis within the food chain.

The book contains a Table of Contents, as well as endpapers with a “Let’s Review” section, Glossary, Index, and link to Abdo Kids online activities.

On the one hand, I can sometimes be a bit reluctant to spend a lot of money on non-fiction for emergent readers, because they can be a bit weak on information. But those early readers need non-fiction, too, and this one earns a lot of points on the cute factor. How can baby hippopotamuses be so ugly and so cute at the same time? With only one or two sentences per two-page spread, the information is indeed limited, but it still manages to cover all the basics, and the beautiful, full-color photos do a great job of supporting the text for beginning readers. My level of Spanish probably puts me on a par with emergent readers in this instance, and I was able to work my way through with a fairly solid level of understanding. And it’s got a good, sturdy binding, too.

This is a beautiful book! The illustrations are bright and celebratory. The story celebrates diversity, while recognizing that many children face challenges that make them feel different from their peer. As a group of children work together to plant a garden, each one in turns shares a personal story of challenge (diabetes, autism, asthma, allergies, wheelchairs, blindness, deafness), yet the questions that transition from one child to the next also serve as a link connecting them in their diversity. In the end, the parallel is explicitly pointed out that the garden they’ve built is full of a variety of different kinds of plants, and how boring would it be if it was all the same.

It’s a dual-language book, sharing the story in both English and Spanish. It tells about a young girl attending a Bomba dance class that she’s not real excited about at first. She’s anxious and highly self-critical. She stands behind the best dancer in the class, ostensibly so she can watch her and follow her lead, but really she just compares herself to the older girl. When she hears she’s going to be invited to perform a solo in front of her classmates, she’s so riddled with anxiety that she is not able to pay attention to those performing before her. When she actually gets started she focuses on the rhythm of the drum and gets lost in the drum and does great. It’s an okay story. I just thought it was a bit disjointed, without clear connections drawn as to what led to her change of attitude.

It’s a cautionary tale, a reminder of human messes. It doesn’t focus on how oil is made or what it is used for. It tells how it is pumped from beneath the earth and sent through a pipeline that runs 800 miles through what was once wilderness. It tells how it is pumped onto enormous ships, and how one night the Exxon Valez ran aground and spilled its cargo of oil into the ocean, where it spread for months over thousands of miles of ocean, killing sea birds and otters, and coating shorelines. It tells that thirty years later the place where it happened has never fully recovered.

It’s a good discussion starter book around numbers and observation. A concept book about counting, it doesn’t come right out and tell the reader what is to be counted. Photos of familiar objects are presented, each of which offer several compositional elements that could be counted, leaving it up to the observer to share what they see. Sets of pictures with similar components open up discussion for the concepts of same v. different and change as well.

Well, I’m only familiar with three of the twenty-six artists discussed in this book, and I guess the main problem is that I still don’t feel very familiar with the other twenty-three. For each artists, a brief paragraph (three or four sentences) tells a bit about their preferred medium and/or themes, but the art in the book is dominated by the artistic style of the illustrator, rather than highlighting the actual art of the artists being discussed.

I want to like it more than I do. The illustrations are cute. It tells the story of a snail who’s convinced by his friend that it’s time to start looking for a new home, and expand his world beyond the bucket of strawberries where he’s been spending all his time. As they head out on their search, Snail spots the apple orchard right away, and is drawn to the bright red fruit, but Ladybug warns him about the danger of the chicken coop that lies between. While Ladybug is intent on wanting to show him a whole list of places, Snail continues to be drawn by the apple orchard, and sets off on his own, nearly falling into the clutches of the chicken. It’s fine. It just didn’t have anything about it that really grabbed me.

To be honest, it’s not my favorite of the Jack books. When I heard the author speak about the Jack books, he shared that it’s a very deliberate choice to avoid having his books fit the moralistic tale model that so many children’s books follow, and I appreciate that Jack is in general a bit of a trickster character who is less that perfect. That’s what makes him likable. But in this one he catches the bank robber in the act, and then turns around and steals one of the bags of loot himself. I thought that went a little too far.

It’s a beginning reader, with controlled and repetitive text, intended for beginning readers. The sentences are intentionally short, with a simple structure, and the danger in these type of books is trying to not let things get too stilted. Often authors will use rhythm or rhyme to avoid this. Instead, these books depend on the combination of illustrations with the text to give them humor and personality that lend voice to the short sentences.