Simply looking at the adorable cover of The Duck Who didn’t Like Water will quack you up. The duck is holding an open umbrella in the rain while wearing a lemon yellow macintosh rain slicker and yellow rain hat. Oh yes, and there is a green frog sitting straight legged on top of the umbrella. Duck is a little OCD when it comes to water. When a terrible storm makes a hole in the roof of Duck’s house (on stilts above the cattails) Duck discovers not only a frog on his front porch, but a true friend in the making.
Category Archives: Reviewer’s Library Type
Italy by Amy Rechner
Basic information about Italy is covered from: location with maps, landscape and climate with a seasonal temperature inset, wildlife with photos, communities, customs, school, food, and celebrations.
I found Italy, in the COUNTRY PROFILES series, the easiest to understand when it came to the use of local place names and vocabulary in captions. This is most likely because this is the country I am most familiar with in this series. Also, Amy Rechner does a great job of including definitions within the text.
Students will appreciate the two pages of quick facts containing Italy’s flag, money, capital city and other information they most likely will be required to give in a report on Italy.
The www.factsurfer.com links gave more information from at least three other resources. Most of the links were working today.
What disappoints is the Timeline section. The reader must jump up and down from the top to the bottom of the pages to follow the sequence of Italy ‘s history. Only four of the lines are straight directly connecting to their spot on the timeline. The other eight are lines in three segments giving the appearance of a maze.
Thailand by Emily Rose Oachs
Basic information about Thailand is covered from: location with maps, landscape and climate with a seasonal temperature inset, wildlife with photos, communities, customs, school, food, and celebrations.
Students will appreciate the two pages of quick facts containing Thailand’s flag, money, capital city and other information they most likely will be required to give in a report on Thailand.
The www.factsurfer.com links which should have given more information from at least three other resources were not working very well the day I went to see them. Of the three Scholastic Thailand books shown, only one of them had information. All the links that matched the photo of this particular Thailand title went to other countries.
What disappoints is the Timeline section. The reader must jump up and down from the top to the bottom of the pages to follow the sequence of Thailand’s history. There is not a single line connecting the appropriate picture to the year on the line. There is a three segmented line which usually crosses the book’s ditch from the left page to the right page.
The Wildlife section includes six photos of indigenous animals, but also talks about another five animals that are not pictured.
Cuba by Amy Rechner
Basic information about Cuba is covered from: location with maps, landscape and climate with a seasonal temperature inset, wildlife with photos, communities, customs, school, food, and celebrations.
Students will appreciate the two pages of quick facts containing Cuba’s flag, money, capital city and other information they most likely will be required to give in a report on Cuba.
The www.factsurfer.com links gave more information from at least three other resources.
What disappoints is the Timeline section. The reader must jump up and down from the top to the bottom of the pages to follow the sequence of Cuba’s history. There is not a single line connecting the appropriate picture to the year on the line. There is a three segmented line which usually crosses the book’s ditch from the left page to the right page.
Meme
Four accomplices, like the four letters of the title Meme, each will question the motives of the others after a wickedly committed murder, a murder they believe has gone viral. It is the fall of their senior year. Cole and Meeka’s relationship has gone south, with Meeka feeling that Cole may cause her physical harm. Cole has had a very rough life and is smarter with computers than with people. Holly, Grayson, and Logan felt there was only one way to protect Meeka. A single picture is taken at the murder site that would connect all of them if one were to confess. It was taken as a sort of security blanket, then all phones were destroyed and left with the buried body. Except the picture began to circulate as a meme shortly after the killing. Who else has the picture? Does that person know what happened that night? Could Cole still be alive? All have a point of view to share as narrators of alternating chapters as the story unwinds. Yet Meeka’s is that last voice. While Aaron Starmer’s title is trite, the writing is pretty good and fans of Gretchen McNeil will enjoy this suspenseful tale.
Manosaurs: #1 WALK LIKE A MANOSAUR! by Stefan Petrucha
When four newly hatched dinosaurs imprint on Doc and Denise at a rundown dinosaur tourist trap this graphic novel becoming very interesting with overtones of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Doc and Denise’s landlord- Angus- unknowingly awakens the dreaded Armageddon, (buried a millennia past), from his underground hypercrystal prison. Armageddon, then transforms Angus into “THE MALICIOUS MAN-COMET!”
Armageddon sets Man-Comet out to destroy the manosaurs. Presently, the manosaurs are at the dinosaur museum with Doc and Denise, who want to show them about their earthly history. Mayhem at the museum ensues until Armageddon is once again trapped in hypercrystal.
Do not miss Book #2.
School for Extraterrestrial Girls : #1 Girls on Fire by Jeremy Whitley & Jamie Noguchi
Tara Smith is a driven high school girl, the daughter of successful, driven parents. Then one day in a hurry to get to the school bus on time, Tara does not take her morning handful of daily pills. Everything changes from there! Tara can no longer block out the taunts from bullies. In a moment of rage, Tara transforms into a girl with glowing red eyes who spontaneously combusts.
Tara finds herself swiftly whisked off to a school for extraterrestrial high school girls. “…IF EVERYTHING GOES WELL, YOU’LL (Tara) HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO REPRESENT EARTH AND THE SOLAR SYSTEM IN FUTURE GALACTIC ENDEAVORS.” This could very well be Tara’s dream come true.
Now Tara must get used to having a roommate, a new school, and life as an alien living among many other aliens from many other worlds. The BIG question is- ‘can friendship withstand cultural history’? A history where one friend’s world destroyed another friends world.
It seems no matter which world a high school girl is from, there will always be drama.
That’s No Dino! Or Is It? What Makes a Dinosaur a Dinosaur by Helaine Becker
What are the characteristics of dinosaur? That’s No Dino! Or Is It? takes the reader through several ancient creatures and compares their bodies to what scientists believe are true dinosaurs. An Anomalocaris may have lived 508 million years ago, but it didn’t have a backbone. Therefore, it wasn’t a dino. A Pleisiosaurus was old enough and had a backbone. But, it lived in the water and, therefore, was not a dino! The last animal to be described is a velociraptor and it has all the characteristics of a dinosaur and there are ten different characteristics! The author concludes with a list of those characteristics, a glossary, an index and a short list of extra resources.
Illustrations are cartoon-like and the writing is accessible for young readers. This book is a nice introduction to dinosaurs and budding paleontologists will take note of what makes a dino a dino after reading this book.
Newton and Curie: The Science Squirrels by Daniel Kirk
Newton and Curie are a pair of squirrels AND scientists. They spend their days near a school watching children on the playground and in their classroom. They observe the kids on the swings and seesaw and then watch the teacher’s lessons through the classroom window. Using what they observe, they build their own versions and discuss concepts like gravity, force and energy. One day, their bird friends’ nest falls out of the tree and Newton and Curie are to the rescue. They use a lever to enter the classroom and obtain materials necessary to fashion a pulley to return the nest to its place on the tree branch. And, they declare at the end “Science is fun!” . I have to agree!
This story is a great way to introduce some basic physics concepts in a fun, engaging manner. Illustrations are beautifully drawn and there is accompanying information about the real Newton and Curie, as well as a glossary and resource list. Author/illustrator Daniel Kirk, who gave us Library Mouse, creates a sweetly drawn, humorous and accessible introduction to scientific concepts that are exemplified all around us – especially on the playground!
Lola’s Super Club: My Dad is a Super Secret Agent by Cristine Beigel & Pierre Fouillet
Lola’s dad, the super secret agent, James Blond, is kidnaped by Max Imum and other Friendly Falls villains. Lola sets out to find him with her dinosaur, James, and her cat Hot Dog. Luckily she brought her pencil and eraser to help her defeat the villains. Along the way she is joined by two skeletons and a scribble monster. In the second story, Lola sets off through the television to save her mom who has gone missing.
This story is full of twists and turns and imagination. As an adult, I had a hard time following and keeping up with the story. I think this story would appeal to 2nd and 3rd grade fans of silly graphic novels.