Tallulah loves ballet and is frustrated when told she cannot have toe shoes until her feet stop growing.  She admires the older ballerinas dancing en pointe and steals a discarded pair of shoes.  Determined to be the youngest dancer en pointe, Tallulah struggles to look graceful.  Her feet quickly become hot and painful.  As she reluctantly returns the shoes to the wastebasket, the previous owner sees her.  She tells Tallulah she understands but with practice and time, Tallulah, too, will probably dance en pointe.  Tallulah’s dreams get a dose of reality but this does not diminish her determination.  Those who love ballet will also enjoy Tallulah’s Tutu and Tallulah’s Solo.  Illustrations are pastel watercolor which complements this topic.

Rebecca Brown returns to New Orleans for spring break. It is here that she meets a ghost from the 1800’s who, as a boy, was to deliver a locket with a mini painting within it which was created by the famous painter, Degas. Unfortunately the boy was killed, dropping the locket between floorboards of a house. Rebecca is determined to recover the locket and deliver it to a descendant of Degas. It turns out, danger is around every corner. The locket is guarded by a dangerous ghost who was the original killer, a bully who repeatedly threatens Rebecca and her friends, and the house with the concealed locket is boarded up, scheduled for destruction. With the help of another friendly ghost and several friends, Rebecca cleverly tricks the dangerous ghost and bully, successfully fulfilling her mission. The second book in the series, this book is entertaining, filled with suspense, danger and relationships.

Chapter One finds young (12 yr.) Max trying to escape from chains wrapped around his chest while water in rising inside  the tank he is in. Jonny Zucker, authors this fast paced action thriller and Ned Woodman’s black, white, and gray illustrations keep the reader on the edge of their seat all the way to the last page!

Max Flash’s parents are stage magicians who have trained their son well. Max is a “first-class escape artist, contortionist, and illusionist.” Max’s escape in chapter one has just qualified him for his first mission with DFEA – Department for Extraordinary Activity. Max is being asked by DFEA to enter the computer game world (inside the computer) and close a portal which a virtual game character is about to use to take over the real world using virtual world warriors. Max is given little time to prepare, but he is familiar with the computer games he is about to enter. Max narrowly escapes back into the real world from the virtual world as the portal is closing by using his contortionist skills.

As this book ends, Max is preparing for his second mission. So far, there are 6 missions.

Includes a Houdini Fact File.

TYPO on page 108,  line 4. ” Max kicked his the bars of the cage in frustration.”

The Gift is more of a book of art, with a gentle story, more than anything else.  The illustrations for the book are all done using a paper cutting technique from one single sheet of paper.  They are so finely detailed it is quite impressive to turn from page to page to see the various events of the storyline play out.  The story is a gentle story, but I’m not sure who is the audience for this book.  The story begins as a young girl sits in a clearing in the woods, making a flower chain, wishing she could be buried her when she is dead.  What?  Do little girls really think that?  She grows and goes through life, always coming back to the clearing, making it more beautiful by adding seeds and bulbs.  She is finally through with her life and her wish (The Gift?) comes true.  Just thinking that this is the place she wants to be buried when dead throws a pall over the story, even though her life is joyful.  I would have thought that as a young girl she would wish that she could build a house and live in the clearing.  So…the story I’m not so sure about, nor does it work as a read aloud.  But the artwork is absolutely beautiful.

This book is pretty much an attempt at a feel-good, you-can-do-it book.  Basically an account of Kerry Wood’s life, growing up in Texas and playing sports, but especially loving baseball.  Nothing in his life was too remarkable.  However, it is unusual for a 17-year-old to be a first round pick in MLB and then playing in the majors after just one game in the minors.  He was successful at a very early age.  But after that burst of success, there was a dark period in which he was injured.  I wish there would have been more detail about this, because I believe there is a link to pitching as much as he did at a young age and becoming injured.  I wonder if he ever regretted the fact that he didn’t go to college and if he would recommend that kids put education first.  I know that many kids take his message of hard work to heart and practice, practice, practice.  But, really, very few people are successful and make it into professional sports.  That same message should apply to school and education, which will open more doors for them.  Wood’s life seems rather one-dimensional–it’s all baseball.  The art is by school students grades four through eight.

Bible Detective, a puzzle search book, is an interesting way to teach about the Bible.  Each pair of pages show either a specific location in the ancient world or a specific event from the Bible, and includes a caption which explains the picture.  In a border around the picture are small icons plus a descriptor for the reader to find within the picture.  This is the perfect complement for an older and a younger reader to find and talk about the pictures, or a solo reader.  Specific people, events, and locations include Abraham, Egypt, Babylon, Jeruselum, and so on.  The last portion of the book contains answer keys.  This is a great book for those wanting to know more about the Bible.

Shark Wars, by EJ Altbacker, fits the archetypal mold of the hero’s journey.  A young shark, Gray, gets banished from the reef where he grew up for sneaking out into ‘the big blue’ in order to hunt.  Once removed from his comfort zone he gets mixed up in a war between two rival shark clans, the Goblin Shiver and the Razor Shiver.  Due to food shortages the sharks have begun warring for hunting rights and oceanic supremacy.  As it becomes clear both factions are corrupt, our heroes, former allies of Goblin Shiver, split off into their own faction, Rogue Shiver, and save the day.

In the beginning this book hints at interesting themes.  I was intrigued by the premise that it’s okay for sharks to hunt dumb fish, such as tuna, but not the more intelligent species.  Unfortunately this was not explored in detail, proving to be a backdrop for a series of terrible fish-related puns.  Set pieces such as the tuna roll sports game were groan worthy in the worst sense and came to overshadow the already-generic plot.  The mythology behind the series also seemed to be merely an elaborate ruse for shark puns, lacking the substance necessary to captivate.  If a child between the 8 and 10 has a strong interest in cookie cutter stories of good versus evil and a fondness for sharks this may be the story for them.

The Rites and Wrongs of Janice Wills captures the angst and insecurities of an American teenager through the observations of the main character.  Janice Wills is a smart, analytical young woman who aspires to be an anthropologist. She decides to catalog high school social behavior in anthropological terms as her entrance letter to college. Using the scientific approach to understanding human behavior, she identifies the rules and rituals of American teenagers.  She also participates in the local Miss Livermush Pageant and Scholarship competition, the local “must-do”, coming of age rite of passage for the young women in her small North Carolina town.  With her astute observations of social interaction of her peers, she comes to an understanding of her own behavior, especially that observing can inhibit participation and that honest insights can be hurtful.  Humorous, witty and occasionally painful, Janice Wills is a literary persona that is likeable, irritating and ultimately endearing.  This book is an enjoyable read for the high school  audience.

Prisoner B-3087 is the touching, heartbreaking journey of survival of a young Jewish boy during the Second World War. He becomes a man, celebrating his Bar Mitzvah, as the Germans restrict all Jews to the Warsaw Ghetto.  The subtle, tightening vice grip of Nazi control and determined hatred catch Yanek and his family off guard.  They all perish. He has only himself and his will to survive.  This true story of Jack Gruener, Yanek,  is written  as historical  fiction to emphasize the random, senseless cruelty that he endured for six long years.  The unimaginable horror of forced labor in ten concentration camps, two death marches, continual starvation, beatings and moments of almost certain death evoke empathy as well as disbelief that humans can do such things to each other.  This awareness of the past horrors is important to teach the terrible truths of genocide and the remarkable drive for survival in the human spirit.  This is not an easy book to read, but it is an important addition to the literary testaments of personal survival and endurance.

This is a fun story about two boys who get numbed about math, and can’t do math at all.  They learn that math is a big part of their life and they need to know math.  The boys have to go back to the museum, where they were numbed, they have to solve several strange math problems to help them regain their math skills.  They decide that they like math and the solving of the problems.