Mr. Mouse runs a motel all by himself. This makes for quite a bit of work when his motel is booked for a convention in town. Mr. Mouse is run ragged helping his guests with their luggage and room service: getting ice, extras pillows, food, helping with the TV remote, and more, for nine times in all. Soon Mr. Mouse is too tired to answer the phone. “The guests come to the lobby to see what is wrong. They see Mr. Mouse. They know they have to help.” (p. 17)

Peter Lubach’s humorous illustrations,  like a giraffe needing quite a few extra pillows and a polar bear fanning himself while he waits for a bucket of ice to arrive make this book enjoyable.

Page 24 lists three comprehension questions under the heading “Big Questions” and there is a small Common Core Connection box on the back cover of the book.

As Katie Woo works out what she will write her research paper on for school, there are “Katie’s Star Tips” at the bottom of 7 pages. These tips include information on brainstorming, sources, note cards, and revisions among other things.

Katie compares what she is learning about her topic of butterflies with the factoids her friends are learning about their topics of whales and airplanes.

Katie’s first draft is shown with its “spelling mistakes, but she could fix those later.” (p. 24) Her final paper is also shown with its revisions and Katie is excited about beginning research for her next paper on dogs.

Prior to the glossary page, there is a full page image of a handwritten sheet of notebook paper listing five ideas for research papers the readers might like to attempt themselves.

This is one of four Dino Detectives books for young readers.

“Dot [the Diplodocus]  is excited. It is her last day of swim lessons. She thinks she finally passed level one.” And the clues begin: mom baking, dad talking about balloons, brother mowing the lawn, and none of her friends are home. Dot writes down the clues before going to swim lessons. When Dot gets back there is no one around with which to share her big news. Then she spots and follows a trail of popcorn out to the back yard where a surprise party awaits for her swimming success.

Steve Harpster’s illustrations are cute, if not hilarious. Imagine a giant lavender diplodocus riding a small pink child’s bicycle. Or a diplodocus searching through her house for her family, where the house looks like a maze from an aerial view.

Chris Eliopoulos’s writing and illustration will make or break this book for you. His writing is very fluid and the dialogue, while not necessarily natural, is very delightfully playful and amusing. The illustration, on the other hand, is very natural and reminds me of the illustration from “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” which is always a fun read for kids. Comparing it to “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” though, I would consider the illustration in this book to be much more entertaining and evocative with a lot of little humorous details hidden in the background and a very good grasp on portraying action with such a limited style.

I did say that there could be some things that could “break” this book for you, though. Firstly, I’ll consider the relatively minor issue: the illustration. While the illustration is very fun to look at and finely detailed (at least for this particular art style), I don’t feel like the characters in the story are very memorable.This simply means that I would jump on anything written by Chris Eliopoulas, but I don’t see your kids waiting for the next Mr. Puzzle book. I have a feeling this is going to be a book that you would have to suggest to your kids to read or do a reading for them with a projector.

The much bigger issue is the writing and content of the writing. The comedic stylings makes me feel like this is targeted at grades 2-6, but there seem to be some questionable moral underpinning and the overall moral of each story is pretty vague. For example, there is a portion of the book where a kid has to get 100% on a quiz and the kid states that he is the only one in the school that can pull this off. While I like that the kid takes pride in his intelligence, I found it odd that we portray this kid as being alone in the school and not having other intelligent peers. It seems to encourage the sense of intelligence and superiority over others instead of encouraging cooperation with peers. Another example is when a group of women ogle Mr. Puzzle and say he’s a “real man’s man,” and the narrator later refers to the admirers as “lovely ladies.”  For this age group, I could see such dialogue to be a bit inappropriate, but not so much so that I would say it was bad. Just that you should be aware of the content before finding out who the book is appropriate for.

Additionally, and this is another double-edged sword, there are some words that I wouldn’t expect a young reader to know or really need to know, yet the rest of the writing is fairly simple and easy to read. As a result, I think 2nd or 3rd graders might have a hard time with such a book, but I think it makes this book wonderful for readers in later grades that are behind in their skills but are more mature. The writing and comedy could appeal to a broad audience and I think reading it out loud opens it up for all grades, but I think this book is best used as a beginner’s book for the higher grades, like 5th and above. The best part is that there are some words in here that are High School-level, like “polyvinyl acetate,” that will provoke the reader to ask for help. In a small reading group, I could imagine a short book like this being very helpful and efficient in getting your students interested and engaged.

submitted by T. Kalen Owens

Very interesting illustrations and photos tell the story of what can be found underground.  Everything from buried clay soldiers in Asia, to hidden tunnels and living quarters during wartime, subways, waterlines, etc.  This will surely engage the curious learners with lively discussion and great visuals.  Very nice addition.

This is actually a compilation of three separate books, placed into one.  The text and illustrations will draw the reader in, whether independent or with an adult and follow the interesting hands-on activities which shed light on the practicality of applied math, and the abundance of it around us in everything.  Well written, students, children, teachers, adults will all enjoy this bounty!  Recommended.

There are 26 delightful haikus about the seasons, brought to us by a delightful panda named Koo. Beautiful way to introduce this form of poetry in a way that children will relate to and enjoy.  Equally lovely illustrations.  Nice Addition.

American Sign Language is introduced by using illustrations of a 9 year old boy with arrows showing the direction of motion, each word is given in large bolded type, and written text directions in front of photo of the word. One of the sites listed on FACTHOUND, at the end of the book, actually shows in live action how to sign 100  common words. “Most ASL signs are understood wherever you go. But some signs may change depending on where you are. It’s like having a different accent.” (page 3)  There are twelve “at Home” categories, in addition to the signing alphabet chart for finger spelling, in this books. Each category contains 7 or more signs/words, for a total of 96 signs. The categories include: My Home, Bedroom, Clothes, Toys, Kitchen, Dining Room, Food, Bathroom, Living Room, Outdoors, Family, and Pets.

This is a book of vocabulary words, but does not show how to convey an entire thought, because not all spoken words are signed when signing.

This book could, also, be used without the signs using simply the written word and photo.

Short, sweet, rhythmical book which glimpses the life of astronauts in space: eating, sleeeping, working, etc.  Very young readers will enjoy the imagination this is sure to envoke.  Nice addition.

Beautiful, nonfiction book which unveils the mystery of numbers and patterns all around in in the natural world.  It will open the eyes of he reader to be looking for fractals all around, in their food, flowers, on a mountainside, in a river, tree roots, etc.  Easy for the reader to relate to and will surely support a development of appreciation of math.  Highly recommended.