James Whitman, teenage poet, confused, anxious but hopeful, creative soul, longs to understand the horror of living with parents whom he calls The Brute and The Banshee, and how they could kick his beloved, abused sister Jorie out of their home without regret or forgiveness. As James begins to question just what Jorie did to deserve such punishment, which also included expulsion from school her senior year, his quest to know her and himself better through ‘therapy’ with an imaginary dove named Dr. Bird, then a real and effective therapist named Dr Dora, is the pulse of this sweet debut book by Evan Roskos.

James, inspired by Walt Whitman, finds it is poetry and friendship that ultimately save him and bring him to reckon with the hard lessons of living. Jorie’s struggles become clear, too, as James makes his way past his own guilt and anxiety to build a healing relationship with her, out there on her own by choice, helping him carve out a way forward with parents whose inept parenting is nevertheless what he is stuck with. James’ ultimate celebration of all things life brings the book to its hopeful fulfillment. The poetry and prose move the plot forward with joy that never flags, even in the darkest of times for James.

Highly recommended.

A happy central character with a life plan and the confidence to see it through: That’s Margo McKenna, high school musical theatre talent, promising musician, who usually gets what she wants. Enter Vicky, lackluster non-actress who gets the lead role Margo ought to have had, and Oliver, Vicky’s mysterious companion, and suddenly the known world is very odd indeed.  Why are people so blind to Vicky’s acting inability? Why do they dote on her? And who is Oliver really?

Lindsay Ribar’s first book is engaging, believable magical realism, brightly written and well developed. Oliver, a gentle genie, comes into Margo’s life summoned by the wishing ring Vicky has abandoned. As Margo begins to understand the power Oliver offers, she also begins to fall in love with him, leading to an ultimately surprising consequence when she defeats the dark genie that wants to end Oliver’s life, thus changing her own forever. The inevitable but unexpected ending promises sequels.

This easy to absorb novel creates a whole new world of genies and ‘masters’ for the modern world. It will be interesting to see what Ms Ribar has in store for Margo and Oliver is the next phase of their existences in this paranormal romance.  Recommended

What I thought was going to be a fractured fairy tale of the Frog Prince turned out to be much more.

This tale of being half frog and half human blends itself nicely into the graphic novel format.

While Pete enjoys living in the swamp with his frog father, he doesn’t always fit into the total frog lifestyle – he’s at least 10X bigger than the other frogs, plus he wears clothes. Then unexpectedly while his tongue is shooting out to catch a fly, it sticks to a speeding car and Pete finds himself in the city. Now Pete finds himself in a middle school trying to fit in scholastically, athletically, and at lunch socially. When Pete is revealed as half frog/half human he jumps through a window and finds himself at the edge of the trash-filled school pond. Suddenly, but effectively, Pete springs into ‘reuse’ , ‘reduce’, and ‘recycle’ mode. The students help Pete clean up the pond for  happy ending.

Some of the boxed time signatures are off and there is a misspelled word on page 7  (loose, should be lose).

Includes: Visual Questions.

Let me start by saying, “I work at a Native American school.”  That said, skip this book and go directly to the first and fourth web site listed on page 40 of the book. If by stories they mean bits of trivia, then this book is just ‘OK’, but if by story they mean tales that will engage the reader, this book falls flat.  Most of the stories are mere crumbs, four maybe five sentences, leaving the reader wanting more which is never given. There are five page long  ‘retelling(s)’  but the artwork on the opposite page looks more Eastern-European than Native American. Each turn of the page usually brings a photo of an artifact of something associated with Native Americans, but often as not, it is not tied to a story or legend. Four times the book tries to link American Indian myths with similar myths in other cultures: Africa, China, and Scandinavia , but each time they are grasping at straws.

American Indians are too vast and too diverse to be effectively covered in 47 pages.

Delightful picture book by Neil Flory. Drawings are cute and would surely appeal to the average 5 to 7 year old. The storyline is about a giraffe named Geri, the shortest giraffe who ever lived. Geri’s height causes all sorts of problems when Bobo the baboon tries to take a photo of the herd. Find out how one herd of giraffes learns how to get EVERYONE to fit!

Nice, large illustrations, good binding, make for a quality, informative book about making good food choices.  The first chapter discusses the “picky eater” and has he father taking his son to the locally grown organic section of the grocery story to shop for foods that are right in nutrients.  Chapter two brings to live the five food groups and even discusses sugar and how little and why you would want in your body.  Later in the book, food choices for lunches, desserts,  and snacks are examined as healthy choices.  There is a formulaic procedure listed in the back on how to create an energy lunch, complete with glossary and further resources.  Recommended, mostly because it’s challenging to find quality books with new nutrition information.

This book has many great features which include photos, captions glossary, index, a timeline and more.  The one piece that caught my attention and earned my praise was the feature called: Today’s persepctive.  It included that often overlooked piece of how we view history differently through the lense of time.  Fox example, the section which told about Pearl Harbor included that American’s felt that it was a “sneak attack” by the Japanese.  However, now historians are saying that is was more a critical intelligence failure on the part of the US.  They felt Japan wasn’t capable of pulling off an attack.  It was a disastrous error to underestimate Japan.  I like how the book is open to new ways of viewing history, and for this reason am recommending it.

A catchy title, nice graphics for lower readers which need high interest, very enticing topics, but probably not the content to support the average  student led science project.   This book could be used to motivate students who aren’t interested in science or completion of an experiment and need encouragement which allows them to use topics or language that isn’t necessarily appropriate or allowed in a school setting.  Topics such as poop, snot, smelly sneakers are used as subjects in the 11 experiments provided.  Although this isn’t the book most teachers or parents will grab, there will probably be some lower readers and challenging students who will enjoy looking through the book.

A hilariously funny everybody book which helps us to explain the origin of the Yankee Doodle tune and make sense of it all.  The story begins with the bored Yankee taking the suggestion from his pony that they go into town.  The horse suggests that he could go shopping for a feather and place in in his hat and call it macaroni.  The Yankee questions the logic in this plan.   The horse then enlightens us that the term “macaroni” was often used as a synonym for “fancy”.  They pony nearly makes a case for going into town when the Yankee hurts his feelings in a last ditch effort to win the argument. To make amends, he ends up going into town with his pony…in a sporty car.  Everyone’s happy by the end. Tom Angelberger has another winning book, besides his success with Origami Yoda books.

The story of a young kangaroo being put to bed provides the setting for sharing a series of original songs to the tunes of popular lullabies.  At the top of the page for each song it tells the reader what tune to use (e.g. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or Rock-a-Bye Baby), but the words are new, with illustrations set to match.  It would be fun to share with students and see if they could identify the tune, and maybe even inspire them to write their own original re-writes.