Ben’s favorite stuffed giraffe disappears one day, but sends a series of postcards telling about his travels, before returning just in time for Ben’s birthday.  I wish it mentioned specific places Raf traveled to, so as to provide readers with geographical context.  The only real humor comes when Ben is described as having to sleep all alone, without Raf, while the illustration shows a whole pile of other stuffed animals.  It’s fine, I suppose, but there’s not really much to make it wonderful.

The page layouts are clean and crisp, with one project per 2-page spread.  Projects use simple materials easily available.  The instructions are written in text suitable for children to be able to follow them independently, well-supported with step-by-step photos.  Vocabulary blurbs are added within the context of the project that illustrate them.  The final project combines techniques introduced in all the others.  My one criticism of the book (common among many craft books) is that the projects in the illustrations look like they were completed by grown-ups pretending to be kids — I worry that children will be disappointed if their own efforts do not produce such perfect results.

A basic weather book explaining thunderstorms, this book will be useful to teachers, but does not offer much to bring it to the attention or interest of recreational readers.  It is adequate if you are in need of some materials to support your science curriculum, but I’m not sure you couldn’t find better.

Eh.  It’s got a strong binding and all the necessary non-fiction features to serve as teaching tool, but it is boring and preachy, and is not likely to have much of an audience for general recreational reading. There are other tools that teach non-fiction reading and friendship better.

This wordless book tells of a girl getting on on a subway train with her parents.  While all the other adults are occupied (reading, sleeping, etc.) the girl watches out the window, noticing when they come out of  a tunnel into a sunlit hillside with lots of little people flagging down the train.  She follows, serving to rescue one of the little people and his plane which had been caught in a tree.  They follow her home and offer in thanks a small plant which grows into a large tree in her urban neighborhood.  The book’s bright, graphic illustrations invite the reader into studying the plot they portray.  It can be a useful tool for oral language development with young readers and a writing prompt for older students.

Fabulous full-page color photos support a couple of simple sentences of text (in both English & Spanish) on the opposite page.  This is a popular topic that holds automatic appeal for young readers, and the information included is both interesting and accessible to beginning readers and language learners.  As with all the books in this series, it’s got a strong and shiny binding that adds to its appeal.

In rhyming text a whole assortment of baby animals ask their mamas whether they’ll still love them and do all the same things when new babies come, and each mama replies, “of course,” calming fears and giving assurances.  It definitely has a very specific target audience and purpose (kids with pregnant moms who need reassuring), and it does a sweet job of fulfilling that purpose if you don’t already have something to fill that niche, but it doesn’t have wide reading appeal.

A sentimental, sweet, and touching story told from the perspective of a small teddy bear who shows patience and perseverance through much rough play in order to win a place in the heart of his young boy.  He wins the boy’s heart and stays with him until the boy is grown, at which point the once-boy shares his beloved bear with another child in his role on a rescue squad.

Cute water-color illustrations help tell this rhyming story of a four-year-old who becomes friends with all the animals in the zoo.  Disturbed by their confinement behind bars, she decides to set them all free one night and invite them to live at her house.  Of course this arrangement creates problems too, but her bold initiative spurs the zookeeper into upgrading their home.  One problem for American readers:  because it was originally published in Great Britain, the rhyme is thrown off a bit for our pronunciation at times (door-saw?).

This book is full of heart.  I don’t know much about the history of baseball (in fact, I had never heard of Honus Wagner, this turn-of-the-twentieth-century ball player who was one of the first players inducted into the Hall of Fame).  But now I’m a fan.  His story from poor, homely, son-of-immigrants coal miner to well-loved baseball star seems like the epitome of the American dream.  Illustrations capture the era and the mood of the story beautifully.