This is a story which needs to be told.  Sarah Emma Edmonds was a spy for the Union during the Civil War.  The Union Army knew her as a man, and she took on a series of roles which crossed both race and gender lines in order to gain information for her side.  The illustrations are slightly impressionistic images of Edmonds in her various roles as well as more generalized frames of the period.  Some may find problems in the thesis of the text.  Jones repeats over and over that Edmonds was pretending to be a man, and in an age of gender politics, it feels strange to not mention even the possibility of a trans or queer identity.  It is understandable to not want to get into this complex topic in a children’s book, but it does seem odd to emphasize the pretense so monotonously.  However, Edmonds’ story is fascinating and should be part of our collective memory of the Civil War.

The raccoons in this picture book have a gentle little life.  Our raccoon child and her mother go through a whole day together from waking up to bedtime.  Short two-line text narrates.  Each page includes one of the following phrases: “Please pick me up, Mama” or, alternately, “Please put me down, Mama.”  Many of the phrases paired with these first lines involve actions a parent and child could do together while reading the book.  This makes it a nice choice for storytime, as a third party could hold the book and read the words, while the parent and child pairings could act out the text.

The illustrations are gentle, but bright, and realistic, in an anthropomorphized-animals kind of way.  The end papers deserve special mention, as the end papers at the beginning of the book are lovely clouds and at the end of the book are stars in a night sky.  In a field of many similar books, this title is exceptionally well executed.

I wondered if this book would be okay for middle school when, in chapter 2, high school student Mclean goes to a drinking party next door.  The remainder of the book was fine, minus a few cuss words sprinkled in.

“What Happened to Goodbye” stars Mclean, a seventeen-year old product of a divorced family.  Since her parents split, Mclean has been shuffled around a lot, never staying at one school long enough to make any strong connections.  In each place that she has lived, she has taken on a different name –Eliza, Beth, Lizbet — each with a different persona.  At last “Mclean” is making real friends, and finding out who she really is.

Dessen writes with realistic dialog and tough real-life situations.

This is a counting down story of a mama bird that becomes increasingly overworked trying to keep her seven hungry babies fed.  The story is full of fun read-aloud sounds and the illustrations are humorous, vibrant and cartoonish.  In the end, when mama bird has finally fed the last baby, her rest is foiled by all the babies being hungry again.  This time, she calls on lounging daddy to help out.  I’m planning to read this at story time for kindergarten, first grade and second grade classes.  I expect that they will be well-entertained by the storyline, the sound effects and silly expressions of the characters.

This children’s abridged version of the original The Call of the Wild remains true enough to the story line without being too intense for the young reader.  Since some of the violent scenes remain, albeit toned down, I would recommend it for more mature 3rd grade readers through 5th grade.  The illustrations are realistic and detailed, serving to bring the story alive and demonstrate the setting.  It is my hope that younger readers will become engaged with this version and graduate to the original classic as they mature.

This is book 3 in the Nathaniel Fludd Beastologist series, of which I am a big fan.  Each book in the series focuses on a mythical beast, this time a Wyvern.  In this story, Nate heads off to Wales to solve a new mystery and restore peace to the land.  Written with humor and edge-of-your seat adventure, these little treasures are fun as read-alouds or for the silent reader.  Our elementary readers enjoy tracking Nate’s progress toward becoming a confident and competent Beastologist.  Boys and girls tend to enjoy this series equally.  The illustrations add interest and depth to the story and help to keep the reader engaged.  I highly recommend this book and series for an elementary audience.

This is the third book in Kai Meyer’s Wave Walkers series (fantasy genre).  The swashbuckling plot flows well and the characters are interesting.  The engaging cover art has caught the attention of our middle school readers and drawn them in to read the book.  According to my middle school student “testers” who have read the whole series, this book is the most exciting with the best adventure and action scenes of all three.  This book is rated at AR level 6.5.  This book is a great addition to our school library and I highly recommend it.

Eve Tharlet is a talented illustrator.  Her watercolor world is beautiful, delicate, and a little messy, all at once.  Her fox and badger figures are sweet, expressive, and lively.  Some children will want to stare at her pictures for hours.  However, the words do not stand up to the illustrations here.  Perhaps it is a problem of translation, either in method or culture.  The dialogue here feels wooden and awkward.  The young characters do not converse like children, the adults feel strained.  Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that this is a series.  Without prior knowledge of the characters and how they met, one does not know the context for the relationships one sees.  This leads to confusion.   This volume in the series may compliment a library which already owns the previous two volumes, but it does not effectively stand alone.

This is the ugly duckling as you’ve never seen him before.  As in other titles in this series, Blecha re-imagines the duckling and his companions in a visual style that’s half Tim Burton and half SpongeBob SquarePants.  With a few exceptions, the story is intact in its traditional form.  The mother has no part in the abuse of our young protagonist.  There is no mention of the cave by the lake from the original story.  And instead of going to the lake to seek death by swan-pecking, Duckling is going to the lake for no apparent reason at all when he sees his pleasing reflection.  And it just so happens that the swans are there, too.  Although Duckling’s experiences along his journey don’t make a lot of sense from an adult point of view, the illustrations and side jokes have massive kid-appeal.  As with other volumes in the Graphic Spin series, this includes a glossary, background information about the author, reteller, and illustrator, discussion questions and writing prompts.  All of these add value for educators to a version of this story that will catch the eyes of their students.

The Julian Game by Adele Griffin was much more of a fun read than one might expect.  Heroine Raye Archer is the new girl who wants to be popular.  She has a solid friend in Natalya, who is quirky and loves sci-fi Saturday night movies like Raye.  But when the chance comes to be friends with Ella, the queen of “The Group” on campus, Raye bends her own moral consciousness for a bit.  Mixing a lesson on the pitfalls of social media as Raye is put in the fire of the The Group’s hate with a lesson on staying true to one’s self, the strength of this text is Griffin’s subtle understanding of how teen girls of all social strata might interact with each other and with the opposite sex.  Woven in this, Raye’s conscious does keep her coming back to the good side.  Small make out sessions are just steamy enough to warrant an 8th grade and up recommendation.  Griffin’s craft of keeping the story interesting long after the initial conflict is resolved will be the reason to sell it to students. The cover photo presents the stronger main character that actually exists at the completion of the novel.