Seven year old Lola’s grandmother is staying with her while her parents are on business trips.  In this second book of the series, Lola finds friendship and sharing friends to be quite a challenge.  Lola wants to dominate time with her best friend Amanda and does not want to share her with Jessie or Savannah.  Her jealousy tends to bring out bad behavior and misunderstanding among the girls.  Lola struggles to be a good friend but continually runs into complications.  The friendship issues continue during the class field trip to the Kookamut Farm.  Young children often experience the emotional roller coaster of relationships and may relate to Lola’s problems.  Expressive pen and ink drawings are on almost every page.

This 12th book in the Just Grace series has Grace trying to find a friend for the new crossing guard, Marie, enjoying their substitute teacher, and helping her best friend, Mimi, prepare for a craft fair.  As  usual, Grace includes humorous illustrations, lists, graphs, and side information with their own mini-titles.  Third grader Grace is energetic, frank, witty, and full of fun observations about school, family, and friends.  Although there are many books in the series, they do not need to be read in order to be enjoyed.  This series is great for those readers easing out of picture books looking for more of a story but not comfortable with the continuous text found in most chapter books.

Lizzie lives in the 19th century London slums with her drunk and abusive father.  A traveling circus comes to town and Lizzie escapes to find work there.  At the same time, a mysterious phantom thief has been robbing various homes in London.  Lizzie finds work assisting the fortune teller and begins to make friends and find acceptance.  As she works alongside the phony fortune teller, Lizzie discovers she has a true psychic gift.  She discovers clues that may uncover the phantom.  The action is fast, the characters and setting are realistic, and one is drawn in to the action and life of Victorian London.  This is book one in the series.  Readers will eagerly look forward to the sequels.

Abby and her brother, Jonah, have a magic mirror which allows them to enter fairy tales when the knock on it three times.  In this sixth adventure, Abby and Jonah follow their dog, Prince, through the mirror in the tale of the Snow Queen.  Many readers may unfamiliar with this fairy tale, but Abby relates details of the story as well as sharing the tidbit that it was the basis for the film, “Frozen”.  Prince has been frozen by the Snow Queen.  In order to rescue Prince, Abby and Jonah befriend characters from the tale and eventually confront the Snow Queen.  This is another entertaining, fractured fairy tale for “Whatever After” fans.

Fernie What lives across the street from the mysterious Gloom estate.  Gustav’s house is black and odd events take place there.  Fernie and Gustav are best friends.  In earlier books, Fernie’s mother is off filming adventure stories and her father and sister, Pearlie, were in Gustav’s home when they fell into a bottomless black pit leading to the Dark Country.  Gustav’s dad is also missing.  It is now up to Gustav and Fernie to find and rescue them from evil Lord Obsidian.  They discover a magical carousel in the basement which transports them to amazing, yet curious places.  They encounter strange beings that they must outwit in order to repair the carousel and continue on their quest.  Illustrations are all in shade of gray, after all, it is Shadowland!  This is the fourth adventure of Gustav and Fernie.  A quirky, yet interesting story line and strangely captivating.  Sure to attract fans of fantasy adventures.

Jules is a child star in a TV sitcom.  She is starting 3rd grade, has a new teacher, and is trying to figure out just how she fits into things.  School has lots of homework, friendships shift on her, and she is having difficulty with her TV character,  Jules’s personality is buoyant even when events start to drag her down.  The various obstacles she encounters with friends, family and school are realistic and her point of view is common to many third graders.  Chapters are labeled as “takes” and the black and white illustrations are humorous.  Jules includes many lists (similar to those in the Just Grace series) and the text is large and easy to read.

Written in journal form, ten year old Celie discloses her worries and opinions about friends and family.  She is confused about issues with her ex-best friend, her grandmother is exhibiting Alzheimer symptoms, and her older sister’s new friend is mean and snobbish.  Celie’s illustrations, entries, and taped-in notes and e-mails give readers the feeling they are actually reading a real diary.  Celie’s views and frustrations are realistic and will have wide appeal among grade school aged girls.  This is book 1 in a series.  Readers will be looking forward to more of Celie’s diaries.

Fans of Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants series will also enjoy his Ricky Ricotta books.  Ricky is a mouse whose best friend is a huge, flying robot.  In this adventure, a Martian named Major Monkey plans to conquer Earth with his own gigantic mechanical monkeys.  Ricky and his robot are able to outwit Major Monkey and overcome the mecha-monkeys.  Also included are the “Flip-O-Rama” actions found in the Captain Underpants books.  Dan Santat illustrates this edition with large, colorful artwork.  This book was originally published in 2002, illustrated in black and white by Dav Pilkey.

Robert Irwin, son of the late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, is the co-creator of this series.   In The Discovery, Robert finds a dinosaur fossil in the Australian outback.  He places it in the back pocket of his shorts while updating his reports.  As he stands, he feels a sharp jab and begins to feel dizzy.  When he awakes, he is no longer in the lab but back in the cretaceous age of the dinosaurs.  He gets an up-close and personal view of creatures that lived in prehistoric Australia.  It is one thing to watch dinosaurs hunt or stampede, quite another to be the item on the menu!  A mighty roar sends Robert back to the present day with a new knowledge of life millions of years ago.  Additional notes about the Australovenator dinosaur, prehistoric Australia and the Australian Museum of Natural History are included in the back.  This is a fun, fiction series for those interested in dinosaurs and Australia!