Ada was born with a club foot and has been a virtual prisoner in her mam’s 3rd floor London flat for nine years.  Her younger brother Jamie gets to go to school and roam the neighborhood.  When children are sent from town to live in the country during the beginning of WWII, Mam is going to send Jamie but not Ada.  Ada leaves with Jamie but when arriving at the rural community, they are the last chosen to live with other families.  Miss Susan reluctantly takes them in, thus beginning a tentative new life of trust, love, and acceptance.  Ada is uneducated but extremely attentive.  She is both drawn to and repelled from their new life with Miss Susan.  She does not understand often and misreads cues.  Gradually she comes to trust Miss Susan’s friendship and love.  Then her abusive Mam reappears and threatens Ada’s hard-won security.  She yanks Ada and Jamie back to London.  One aches for Ada as she struggles with her own insecurities and quest for learning, her determined will to survive, and to be accepted for herself.  Many, including Ada’s Mam, have the preconceived opinion that a physical disability is accompanied with a mental defect.  As Ada eventually states, “My club foot is a long way from my head!”  This is a well told story from Ada’s voice and the authentic settings, to her courage and quest for self-respect.

The FBI is encouraging 13 year old Ollie to keep a low profile after his last adventure with his best friend Moxie (Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking).  A little bit chubby and a lot asthmatic, Ollie joins a group at Wilderness Scout Camp, located on an island in Boston Harbor where legends of pirate treasures abound.  As he focuses on making friends, working on scout badges, and engaging in a ruthless game of tag, Ollie is approached by Ranger Johnson to help locate a lost treasure of pirate Ben Avery.  The chapters are short and flip between camp competitions, pirate clues, and Ollie’s interest in geocaching.  Ollie’s issues with asthma and the personalities of his tent-mates and fellow campers are realistic.   There are several references to Ollie’s adventure with Moxie in the first book.  While it is not necessary to read the books in order, it may help in understanding the whole picture of Ollie.  However, I found it a bit irritating to keep reading references to a book I have not read.  Readers will root for Ollie as he deals with bullies and his asthma, struggles with knowing who to trust with pirate booty, and develops into a leader.

The opening chapter causes the reader’s stomach to flip with dread and anxiety as the teenaged boy Eric receives a series of mysterious and creepy phone calls, followed by an email with a photo of Eric’s bedroom. As Eric has the realization that “Whoever had taken the picture had been in his room”, the reader is hooked.

Told in the third person, the story centers around three teens, Eric, Shelly, and Fatima.   The three teens, from different high schools, meet while on suspension and are attending the same bullying intervention program. The three team up to discover the anonymous caller who threatens them with revealing photos or writings from their personal pasts.  The reader is kept in suspense as to WHAT the secrets are that the three kids are trying so desperately to keep secret.

This novel is full of suspense, mystery, blackmail, and bullying.  The three teens are unlikely bullies, and the reader feels empathy for them, as they do things they hate to do but don’t feel they have a choice about.

Two of the characters are somewhat stereotypical (Eric is a jock, Shelly is Goth), while the third character, Fatima is a Muslim-American girl, and seeing the situation from her cultural viewpoint adds diversity and interest.

For those readers who enjoy this book, it is likely that there will be a sequel: the final scene sets up that possibility.

Monkeys is one of six books in the Zoo Animals series published by Sandcastle.  The photographs are dazzling.  The simple text includes vocabulary that should be mostly accessible for early readers.  The book includes a contents page, Fast Facts summary, quick quiz and glossary.

This rhyming bedtime story chronicles the adventures of children who participate in a Night Parade, “while mothers and fathers lie sleeping.”  The children dance around stars, skip around signposts and “make cakes for the moon with an old wooden spoon and get frosting all over their faces.”  The magical verse and vibrant illustrations will make this book a bedtime favorite.

Sometimes Ruby needs just one more….one more minute to sleep, one more push on the swing, or one more scoop of ice cream on her cone.  This story, that every toddler and adult reader will relate to, is brought to life with GORGEOUS and engaging illustrations.

This simple story follows the path of a bouncing ball as it journeys from a small boy, to a small girl, and back again.  The illustrations are bright and engaging.

One of six books in the Big Machines series, this book describes a number of big floating machines and provides a few interesting facts about each.  Each “big” machine is rated Big, Super or Mighty!!!  Photographs are set off by illustrated text and sidebar information.  The book includes a table of contents, brief quiz, glossary and index.