Part sentimental look at a boy’s trip to the ball game with his father, part nod to “Goodnight Moon,” the rhyming text and sepia toned illustrations begin by describing all the things they see and do as spectators at the big game, and concludes by saying goodnight to everything and everyone as they leave, right up to, “Goodnight, Daddy. Goodnight, moon. Goodnight, baseball, safe in my room.”  The final illustrations shows just what a baseball fan this boy is, as we see his bedroom, fully decorated with baseball bed, baseball bedspread, baseball carpet, baseball lamp, baseball toys, and the full moon out the window perceived as a baseball as well.  Sure to be enjoyed by young baseball fans.

Intended for very young audiences, a repetitive format and simple text and illustrations  teach basic concepts, while also inviting young readers to delve more deeply into those concepts.  It begins by showing an apple opposite an armadillo, asking the simple (and seemly obvious) question, “Which is round?” When the reader turns the page, the same question repeats, accompanied with, “What do you think?”  Only this time the apple has been eaten down to the core, and the armadillo is curled up upon itself in a round ball.  Similar examples examine concepts of bigger, longer, faster, higher.  And the book concludes with asking whether an apple or a watermelon is red, whole green and red fruits on the first page are followed by fruits cut apart to show the white and red insides when the page is turned.  A great tool for developing observational skills and creating discussions around comparisons.

The child-like illustrations of characters are over-laid over more sophisticated backgrounds.  The story contains a simple message about reusing items rather than discarding them:  Mr. King (King of the jungle perhaps? A cat with a crown) begins as a consumer of the first order, who is quick to toss old items into his pond to be replaced with new ones, until he’s fishing one day and snares a “monster” made up of all his discards; the hubbub that arrises draws his neighbors who don’t see the monster, but are delighted with all the treasures lying on shore, and Mr. King comes to realize how his old things can be repurposed into new inventions that delight one and all.  A great story to bring out around Earth Day.

Though it may not be a popular title, it sure is a useful one.  I wish I’d had a copy handy when I was a first-year teacher, trying to teach prepositional phrases from a grammar text book that didn’t define what a preposition was — only gave a list of them.  This book begins by offering a clear definition of what a prepositions does (“It ties words together to show how they are related”), and then goes on to give several different examples, well-organized by the type of relationship they describe, and well-illustrated by large color photos.  Old-school grammarians may take objection to the blatant dismissal of the old rule against ending a sentence with a preposition, as this volume declares that a preposition “may be the first word, the last word, or somewhere in between.”

The full-page color photos that illustrate this book are bright and eye-catching.  The text is simple, with only two or three sentences on each two-page spread, as it is intended to for beginning readers.  As is often the risk with non-fiction books for early readers, the information is a bit weak.  Still, it does have the usual non-fiction text features (table of contents, index, glossary, etc.) for teaching purposes.

This story is written as a rhyme, but does not flow smoothly in places.  In the first half of the book the things the chicks learn at school each day are not correct.  The mother hen ends up reteaching her chicks each night.  It reflects negatively on the school.  Then she talks about negative and posative  attributes in an abstract way.  They seem to solve their problems by changing schools.

I don’t think I like how this story reflects on teachers and schools.  The googly eyed pictures are lots of fun.  I like them far more than the story.

This is a cute story about responsibility and consequences.  The book is a great one for readers who want to start reading chapter books.

The characters are loveable and kind.  They learn to deal with problems in an appropriate way.

The font, words, and spacing are great for early readers.  The pictures are fun too.

At the end of the book is a craft project to help readers create one of the stories characters for themselves.

This book is a nice addition to our library.

This book has fun pictures, but the story line seems to have no real conclusions.  Maybe for kids who like to imagine their own solutions this would be an interesting book.  To me, it just seemed to ramble around.

This book is very eco-friendly, with fun projects young girls would enjoy!  It has clear pictures, with numbered step by step instructions.  Very easy to follow.  The grammar could be improved in some of the instructions.  Page 9, step 4 is particularly poor.  The font used on some of the added tips and cautions is a cursive looking type, and is harder to read.  Young readers may just ignore those reading blocks,  and miss some of the safety precautions in the process.

The recipes for the personal pampering are wonderful!  The end of the book has great basic how-to instructions for skills everyone could use.

In spite of the things I saw as weaknesses in this book I think it is a nice addition to our library.