Large, simple sentences give very basic information about baby horses.  Full page color photos are clear and support the text.  Young readers will learn fundamental facts about foals.  Additional facts are provided on a “Did You Know?” page.  A short true/false quiz is included in the back with a glossary of the bolded text.  This is a good introduction to baby horses with just enough facts to pique the curiosity of young people.

This book demonstrates how to draw nine different animals. Each animal has a four step guide to completion. Each animal has a cute, cartoon appearance.

This version of the story of the Trojan War, Hades, Ruler of the Underworld, tells his version of how Helen was kidnapped which lead to the war. Hades reports that Cupid shoots an arrow at Helen to make her fall in love with Paris and go to Troy with him, leaving her husband Menelaus. The story continues with Menelaus and his army sailing to Troy with mass loss of life, including Achilles and Hector. The concept of the Greeks hiding in the Trojan horse to pass through the gates of Troy to conquer the Trojans resulting in Helen returning to Greece with Menelaus. Modern day items are found in this version, such as TV and a bus. A table of contents, guide to the myths, glossary, discussion questions, writing prompts, and websites pages are included.

Jared lives next to Woodland Cemetery. Jared has nightmares of being dragged by grave robbing ghosts, and then one night the ghosts drag him for real! The grave robbers believe that Jared should be buried in the cemetery, and plan to do just that, until Jared formulates a plan to get rid of those ghosts forever.

While their mother is out of town, Jessie and Evan Treski plan to put on a magic show. When their babysitter is injured, who is available to stay with the two of them… their long lost father. Evan is skeptical, but Jessie is quite excited to have their father back. Evan’s intuition turns out to be dead on when their father leaves early, abandoning the kids with a hurricane approaching. Jessie and Evan work together as a team throughout the course of the hurricane to protect themselves and their home. This fifth book in the Lemonade War Series if full of suspense, courage and family love.

The saga of the fight for domination continues both on land and on the oceans.  Drew Ferran, werewolf, continues to be the strong and wise leader as the war grows and more enemies and allies present themselves.   The action, and there’s plenty of it, is ferocious and it becomes difficult to tell friend from enemy.  The setting switches from land to sea constantly; the story is well linked to past books.  The characters are believable, with Count Vega as the Sharklord and Casper, Vega’s son, from the last book playing a major role.  The war is still going strong and those who crave action and adventure will love this series.

Capture the Flag is a suspenseful thriller set in an airport.  It appears that this is the first book of a series in which three middle-school age kids meet for the first time and, together, solve the mystery of the U.S. flag stolen from the Smithsonian Museum.  All three happened to be at the Smithsonian at a ceremony to rededicate the flag after being removed and repaired for the last six months.  The next morning, all three are at the airport when all flights are cancelled due to a snowstorm.  They recognize one another when they all hear that the flag they had just seen the previous evening had been stolen.  One boy, Jose, was particularly upset as his mother had done the restoration of the flag and was now taken into custody as a suspect.  As no one was going anywhere, they all had plenty of time to talk and figure out that whomever had taken the flag was probably stuck in the snowstorm, just like them.  With some great deductive reasoning, the kids all work together to figure out who was at the museum last night and who would have opportunity and motive to do such a thing.  The three become friends and along the way discover that they have much more in common than first thought–each has a parent or close relative who is a member of the Silver Jaguar Society–a group of people who are all related to past artists and who have all taken an oath to protect art at all costs.  Those in the Society all wear some type of Silver Jaguar which identifies them to fellow Society members.  Lots of twists and turns and an enjoyable read.

Kids, boys especially, love these superhero graphic novels.  In this, the adventure begins shows a typical day for Superman and his alias, Clark Kent.  The day also includes Lois Lane, newspaper journalist, Jimmy Olsen, newspaper photographer and gopher, and enemy Lux Luthor.  The colors are bright and vivid, the action interesting.  The only question I have is why is the Chief on Jimmy Olsen’s case about bringing him coffee?  I remember this also as a kid and watching the television version of Superman.  Is it still going on?  If so, too bad, this dates the story.

Most young children have watched Scooby-Doo on television so he is a familiar character.  So having books based on the same character and teaching math concepts is a great idea–they are learning without even knowing it.  Oddzilla is a monster created by a man who programs it to steal one object in a pair.  He then advertises that if you are missing one of something, he’ll have one to sell you to make a pair.  This book is short and sweet, great sewn binding, and teaches all in one.