Susan Hood is the author of many Pup and Hound adventures written for beginning readers.  Six of these stories are collected in this volume.  They can be read a separate stories or one after the other for a longer tale.  Each story is told in simple, rhyming sentences with large font and plenty of repetition.  The older, wiser Hound keeps a loving eye on the energetic Pup as they romp around the farm.  Linda Hendry’s colorful, humorous illustrations on every page are a perfect match for Pup and Hound’s exploits.  Each of the six stories are written at a beginning first grade reading level.  This Big Book of Stories is an ideal choice for young readers venturing into more independent reading.

Beginning with a question, books in this series simply and clearly define the sport.  The text is basic and repetitive, gives information about equipment, rules, and includes “fun facts”.  A complete diagram of a court is plainly labeled.  Words to know are in bold font and also defined in the glossary.  Index also included.  Colorful photos show young boys and girls demonstrating each term. With so many books written about basketball, it is a pleasure to see one entirely directed toward adolescent readers and players.  Other books in the series include baseball, dance, football, soccer, and swimming.

Twelve year old Chase Masters and his father follow natural disasters and are currently in Mexico where the Rossi Brothers’ Circus went missing after a massive earthquake.  Separated from her family, Nicole Rossi is anxious to find them and check on the animals.  Chase, Nicole, and a few remaining circus members form a team to locate and provide assistance.  A volcanic eruption is imminent, a tiger is loose, thieves intercept them, roads are blocked, equipment fails, and the air is filling with ash.  Much action fills this third book of the Storm Runners series.  Although this is the final book in this adventure, one does not have to have read the previous books in order to get caught up in the fast-paced action.  This series will most certainly attract reluctant readers.

Zander, LaShonda, Kambui, and Bobbi go to the DaVinci Middle School for the Gifted and Talented in Harlem.  They created an alternative newspaper called, The Cruisers.  This third book in the series generated many thought-provoking questions and situations sure to prompt discussions.  Zander writes a play called Act 6, that looks at several of Shakespeare’s characters in the future.  LaShonda is recognized as a creative designer and is offered a chance to attend college.  She and her autistic, younger brother live in a group home.  She won’t consider leaving her brother, even if it means she cannot continue school to better their lives.  The many middle school situations are realistic, the voices of a multicultural community are believable, and this close group of friends have each others’ backs as they address contemporary issues.  Walter Dean Myers does not shy away from challenging subjects: Speedy track team member Sagal, from Afghanistan, will not remove her traditional clothing to wear a track uniform in order to race.  An upcoming topic for the debate team is “Are Wars Necessary?”.  Zander’s parents are divorced and now his father wants to be part of his life.  Although this book is part of a series, it reads well as a stand-alone.

Mr. Mosely is just a dog – a large, clumsy, loving, loyal dog who only kind of knows one trick.  Yet this special dog is just what Corey’s family needs.  Mr. Mosely’s story is told in short, journal-like chapters by Corey.  Part Great Dane and part Dalmatian, Mr. Mosely is mostly white with a large heart-shaped group of spots on his chest, a small tear-shaped spot near his eye, and part of one ear.  Although the focus is Mr. Mosely, details of Corey’s family relationships and turmoil are revealed.  The tone is funny, sad, ridiculous, tender and does not shy away from the rewards and risks of loving, whether pets or family members.  This is an honest telling of life with a beloved pet for anyone.  A great read!

How often did young men( pre-Viet Nam) think going off to war would be glorious? A soldier’s frustration and optimism of being at war are well balanced in this book . Chris Lynch writes this first book in his World War II series about a young man, Roman, who lives and breathes baseball, as a member of the minor league Red Sox team, that his going off to fight the Nazis will have to down sides to it. Roman enlists, even before Pearl Harbor and the United States involvement is declared. The town’s people have a send off for the baseball players who have enlisted, as this is the last game of the season.  Roman is so gun ho. Then comes the many long months of training. “But I still couldn’t help feeling that, as much as we were learning in Louisiana and East Texas, in Kentucky and the Carolinas, it wasn’t nearly as much as the Nazis were learning in Poland and Czechoslovakia, in France, in Norway and Denmark, and the Soviet Union.”  (p. 48)           Why can’t they get to the actual fighting.  “While I’ve been training, practicing, maneuvering for the better part of a year, the Nazis have been playing for real, dominating, spreading carnage and rewriting maps, with what seems to be feeble resistance along the way.”    (p. 51)   These first four chapters that make up Part 1 of the book are full of foreshadowing.   Part 2 begins with more training, but this time in Northern Ireland. Then just two pages short of the middle of the book, Roman gets his first taste of battle- all the months of maneuvers couldn’t prepare them for this. Roman is a tank driver in North Africa. There is still down time, but now it is often due to waiting for the other squads to all aline before the battle can begin. There is down time traveling from one location to another, too, weeks of driving the tank cross country. Then, there are the actual battles. Landing on a beach, being shot at by the German Luftwaffe, seeing an enemy tank driver being burnt, having his tank partner loose his hearing due to the enemy bullets and shells hitting the outside of their tank, the retreating from the German, and later getting surrounded Germans and having their tank’s turret shot off along with three of its company while he survived.

The book is never graphic in its descriptions, but Lynch gets the point across. Roman learns of the mortality involved in war, but also knows that the Nazis must be stopped. This book ends with Roman and the only other living member of his tank comrades in Italy.

Stephen Gilpin’s manga style illustrations, with its big eyes, skinny arms and legs, will grab the readers attention before the story begins, because in this case, the reader should judge the book by its cover! The  black and white illustrations continue two or three times in each of the eleven chapters, too.

Flo (short for Florence – but don’t call her that) and her mother move around a lot since her father died. They are moving into yet another apartment building. This is the fourth in four years. Flo knows her mother is trying hard, but this isn’t much of a place, maybe they won’t be here long enough to unpack Flo thinks.  After dinner, Flo goes to investigate who stole her entire box of Popsicles from the grocery bag in the hall, while they were unloading the  rest of the groceries in the kitchen. Flo asks the new neighbor across the hall where the ‘underwear boy’ is? (Illustration on page 22 is priceless.) The grandmother tells Flo he’s down in the basement laundry room. Flo decides to not take the rickety elevator to the basement , but used the stairs instead. The stairs are filled with webs and big white fuzzy balls. Yuck. The ‘underwear kid’  is indeed doing the laundry. The kid’s name is Ferdinand, Furry for short. Furry asks Flo, ” Want to see something awesome?… It’s a crack in the floor…The light shining from the crack bathed his face in an eerie blue light.     And just like that, Flo forgot all about the Popsicles.”  (pg. 48-49) As it turns out, the building’s retired ‘maintenance guy’ informs Flo and Furry the apartment building was “built a long time ago on top of an ancient seal…. A seal like a plug… It was built to seal off a doorway into another world.”  (p. 71)   Furry and Flo work their way back up to their apartments on the 17th floor. A little while later, Flo hears Furry leaving his apartment and he has her box of Popsicles! Flo follows Furry up to the roof where the full moon turns him into a werewolf. The Popsicles are to help keep him cool in all the fur, hence only the ‘tightie whities’ (illustration on p. 83). Flo steps on one of the big white fuzzy balls on her way to the roof. It turns out, it is actually a giant spider egg and the mother spider is now after them. Back to the basement they go. They stop the giant mother spider by putting her eggs into the crack in the laundry room floor.  “As Flo headed back upstairs to her new home, she got to thinking. Sure Coran Towers were dumpy and kind of creepy, but they were growing on her. And having a werewolf as a friend certainly didn’t hurt.    At least I won’t be bored, Flo thought.  (p. 120)

Flo has 3 questions to ask the readers to guide them into a deeper understanding of her character. Then Furry has 3 writing prompts for the readers. Finally there is  sneak peak at Furry and Flo’s next book –  The Problem with Goblins.

This is a story especially for those youngsters who work as part of a family business. A mother, father, and young son run the diner at a truck stop, while his uncle runs the service garage. The mother, father, and son begin work long before daylight hours. The young boy catches his school bus from the diner, in the morning, after his job of squeezing the fresh orange juice. The diner has regular customers: the eighteen wheeler, the silver milk tanker, the moving van, the flat bed, and the tow truck. The family knows each trucker’s breakfast order by heart. This morning the old green pickup does come. Everyone begins to wonder where he can be. Off on the school bus, the boy asks the bus driver to radio in the location of the green pickup which he sees has broken down.

Melissa Iwai’s illustrations are done in bright paint and cut paper. There are 16 different types of trucks inside the front cover and repeated inside the back cover.

Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the professional wrestling world will find Larry Matysik’s  “Definitive Shoot” on the world’s greatest wrestlers to be an educational experience, even while knowing it is totally opinion based.  Matysik’s analysis of the best wrestlers comes across with such an honest tone that even  Vince McMahon should find it a fair assessment with sound arguments based on valid reasoning, despite the fact that McMahon published his own list of the fifty greatest based only on the 50 most popular TV WWE  athletes–WWE being McMahon’s company of course.  Matysik’s list includes wrestlers who did well with their natural ability rather than the scripted acting the WWE portrays today (reviewers personal reflection here).  And his list is not a popularity contest, that McMahon’s  surely is.  Matysik’s categories for evaluation included: working ability, charisma, mic work, drawing ability, legacy, and  the most important — being real.  “Reality.  Legitimacy.  Believability.  The real deal.  A true tough guy.  A wrestler who can wrestle.”  My only critique is that it took 106 pages of explaining his rational before the countdown began. For fans of professional wrestlers, as well as students who find a way to do a research paper on this subject, Larry Matysik’s has the history and the argument that makes for an appreciative read.  Recommended.