The text in Sea Turtles contains many informative and easily read facts.  Words to know are in red and, although in the glossary, are often explained on the page.  The seven species of sea turtles are presented with clear, colorful photographs.  Occasional Fun Fact boxes provide additional information.  Physical characteristics, diet, habitat, behaviors, and distribution are described.  Other land turtles and tortoises are briefly mentioned.  Although sea turtles have been around more than 200 million years, their future is at risk without appropriate assistance from humans.  Global warming, lost habitats, and pollution are the biggest threats.  A map illustrating the range of sea turtle habitats is included in the back with the glossary, index, and sites to access additional facts for sea turtles, turtles, Galapagos turtles, fossils, and reptiles.  Citation information for these resources are also included.

Binky, the space cat, must train a new recruit.  The only problem is that this new cadet is a dog named Gordon.  When training appears to be ineffective, Binky and his superior, neighborhood cat Captain Gracie, suspect that Gordon is a double agent in the fight against aliens (flies).  Surveillance of Gordie’s actions in outer space (outdoors), leaving messages and dis-arming anti-alien devices, convince Binky that Gordie is a traitor.  The adventures of teaching this unmanageable recruit includes a bit of potty humor as this young pup learns routines.  Ultimately, Gordie proves himself to be a super alien fighter and a technological genius.  Ashley Spires’ monotone watercolor illustrations help tell this amusing adventure parody.

Mr. Green, a cookie-loving alligator, followed his nose to a freshly baked tray of cookies and discovered an odd note warning they were terrible.  This was strange because Mrs. Green always baked wonderful cookies!  After investigating the ingredients, he decided to taste one.  Delicious!  Then he wondered about the others.  Just as he finished the last one, Mrs. Green returned home.  She showed him how he had misread the note and told him she had doubled the recipe – and the rest were ready to bake.  Mr. Green began calculating how many cookies there would be if one kept doubling the recipe!  Bright, colorful acrylic artwork beautifully illustrates the text.  Originally published in 2006 as On the Go with Mr. and Mrs. Green, the new 2012 edition changed the title to Cookies.

This 6.25″ X 7.25 ” book is for having fun while  searching for jungle animals and plants hidden on darkened transparent plastic with the use of a punch-out  cardboard ‘torch’ [flashlight] found at the back of the book. As a school librarian, I have my doubts as to how long the torch will remain with the book, but have found a simple 1.5 X 7  inch strip of white paper will do the job, or even simply holding the plastic page in front of a window, will work.

I like that the book states, ” “Watch out. You would never see all the animals you will find in this book in one place, because they come from jungles all over the world.”

There are 6 plastic transparent pages on the right hand side for the reader to search for the animals and plants listed and roughly shown in a key on the opposite left hand page. The six transparent pages cover 5 jungle life zones with a sixth one on animal camouflage. The emergent treetop zone has 12 animals, the canopy has 15, the lower branches have 15, the undergrowth has 14, the river has 16, and the camouflage has 11 animals to find.

The book does not provide textual information on the animals to be found.

Bot Wars is a look into the future in which robots play an important role.  As they do now, robots are used for everything, but even more so.  They were affordable and so many people had them.  Kind of similar to cars and computers now.  The custom was to work the robots until they wore out and then dispose of them.  Then someone came up with the idea and invention of a ‘think chip’ which was implanted into each robot.  This enabled the robot to become more human.  Almost too human.  Now they had opinions and were demanding civil ‘rights.’  Many people wanted the think chips removed, but not the robots.  The country became divided and war ensued: one side wanting the old robots back and one side supporting the new robots.  The government sided with the first.  In this story, the small family of a father and two sons support the bots.  The oldest son lost his leg in the war and the father has long since disappeared since going to fight.  Apparently the long-lost father is the leader of the rebellion of the bots.  During the fighting he became severely injured and was repaired by the bots using bot parts and is now mostly bot himself.  The relationships in the story are interesting, the politics are maddening, and the science fiction abilities are fascinating.  The story line moves along quickly, and the characters are well developed.  My only criticism is the repeated use of the words ‘wrenched’  and ‘geared.’  Old words with new meaning.  This disrupted the otherwise smooth language.

Daisy loved doing a lot of things.  One day her teacher told the class that they were going to write sentences about animals.  The twist was that all the words had to start with the same letter or sound as the animal’s name.  It’s call alliteration.  Daisy thought the sentences were fabulous!

This is a cute book about alliteration and Daisy trying to get the boy next door to quite calling her Lazy Daisy.  She came up with, Dynamite Dramatic Determined Dazzling Daisy.  But that turned out to be a problem.

Ty is a seven year-old boy who comes up with some strange ideas. Like battling the cat with the dust buster or bring  a baby penguin home from the zoo in his backpack.  Ty is not so sure he likes his new baby sister Maggie because she takes up all of Mom’s time.

Ty’s biggest problem is now that he has a penguin in his house what to do with it.  His sister’s help him try to get it back to the zoo without Mom knowing what is going on.

In this ninth epic novel by Dav Pilkey, George and Harold explain how they were sentenced to 10 years in Piqua State Penitentiary with Warden Schmorden from the previous novel. George and Harold then proceed to tell [in chapters 3-8] what happened there with Tippy Tinkletrouser in charge of making a BIG ‘statue’ for the penitentiary’ 10th anniversary. Along the way, ” ‘ That ridiculous super hero foiled my plot to take over the planet and enslave humanity!’ shouted Tippy. ‘He’s the reason I got locked up!’ ”

The sophomoric, slap-stick humor coyfully continues as George and Harold tell of how they first met back in kindergarten while outwitting the principal’s bullying 6th grade nephew.

Chapter Twelve – The Incredibly Graphic Violence Chapter (in Flip-O-Rama)  : Indiana George and the Tie of Doom is my favorite of all time, because I was able to do my best flipping of all time, with this action sequence!

Chapters 17-27 are quite ingenious, intriguing as to how kindergarteners George and Harold outsmart the 6th grade bully using his own school locker!

In the end, Tippy Tinkletrouser has gone back in time, changed the course of history and there may never be another Captain Underpants adventure because of it.

This ninth novel has a higher reading level than the first seven novels in the series and 100+ more pages than any on the other novels in this series.

Sean Price gives us the most basic and general of information on the causes and effects of water pollution created by human activity. Causes include farms’: animal waste, fertilizers and pesticides; industrial waste dumping; and human residential sewage.

The water pollution is talked about from past history to the present as causing health problems for wild life and humans including: diseases, such as, cholera and ‘dead zones’ were plant and/or animal life have been poisoned to extinction in specific areas.

The creation and need for the EPA is discussed.

There are 7 insets entitled ‘Eye-openers’ and 6 entitled ‘Question Time’ sprinkled throughout the 32 pages of this book, as well as, 6 diagrams and graphs. The Eye-openers give additional information and the Question Time sections give further explanation to the information introduced on that page.

This book believes in the saying a picture is worth a thousand words. There are pictures on every page.

The Table of Contents lists “Where to Find Out More” on page 31, but this section is missing.

Bully Bean is mean.  Lima Bear, the only one who is green, seems to be Bully Bean’s favorite target.  When Bully Bean gets trapped, it is Lima who brings help. After watching how hard everyone worked to free him, Bully Bean realizes his large size and great strength could be a huge help to all in Beandom.  Being kind is much more rewarding than being a bully.  In the back are extended learning activities, an pictorial list of additional Beandom books, and brief comments from approving readers.  Each book teaches lessons on tolerance, honesty, courage, and working together to help children learn how to handle common situations.