Pet lovers will be happy to see this biography on Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer.”  At a very young age, it was obvious that Cesar had a special way with dogs.  The book tells of his technique of calming dogs by looking through the eyes of the animal to understand them.  He believes that dogs are obedient to their owner only if they have an understanding of whom their leader is.  This he learned from his grandfather, who shared this  special skill with animals.

The biography tells Cesar’s story of crossing the border from Mexico into the US illegally, and of how he worked his way up to having his own TV show, which first aired on September 13, 2004.  Dog lovers will enjoy the  many photographs throughout.

This visually-appealing cookbook for beginners is sure to please.  Paula Deen, in her planning for the cookbook, first tried to think of events that would lead young people to cook/bake, and organized her chapters as such.  Some of the chapters include breakfast, bake sales, pool parties, sleepovers, Christmas parties, family picnics, and Mother’s and Father’s Day.  Cooking tips (“when cutting, use a cutting board to cut on, never the countertop), a Glossary (garnish, mince, saute, simmer, whisk, etc.) How to Measure (liquids vs solids, for example), and an index are added features.

The recipes contain thorough directions, including such things as positioning the oven racks, and how to prepare your cooking station.  Paula includes helpful information such as the fact that a muffin taken out of the freezer will take about 30 minutes to thaw, or one can microwave it for 45 seconds.

The Bake Sale chapter gives tips on how to have a successful bake sale.  Being from the South, Paula mentions manners throughout the cookbook, as well as presentation ideas to give the finished food a polished look.

A gentle, soft, touching tale about letting go of a loved one.  Old Pig and Granddaughter have lived together for a long time, comfortable in the routines in which they help each other, but one day the routine is thrown off when Old Pig finds herself too tired to get up as usual for breakfast.  When she does finally feel well enough to get up, she’s still tired, but feels the need to make some preparations, including taking a long walk with Granddaughter celebrating the simple delights of life.  Granddaughter cares for Old Pig right up until”for the very last time Old Pig and Granddaughter held each other tight until morning.”  The soft illustrations beautifully capture and help to set the gentle mood of the story.  A wonderfully comforting book to share with someone facing their own loss.

I think whether this book would qualify as recommended or additional purpose will depend on the purpose you are seeking to fill.  It’s got a lot of information presented in a very readable fashion, rather like a travel diary.  The information isn’t organized terribly well for research purposes, so if it’s strictly an information book you’re looking for, it would probably be an additional purchase.  But if you’d like to use the sports connection to spark some reader’s interest in geography and travel, then I could recommend this (and probably the rest of the series).  The one thing I wished for that could have made this an R* would be to have more photos to help support the text.  One feature I really did like (besides the voice that made it so inviting) was that it included excerpts from the glossary in little blurbs along the way, right on the pages where the words would be needed.  Let’s face it, kids tend to be pretty lazy about actually using the glossaries in the back, but putting the “Words 2 Know” blurbs right on the applicable page would be helpful.

A book designed to teach children about business basics, this is the story of a young girl who wants a doll she sees on sale and must find a way to earn the money to pay for it.  After determining what marketable skills she has, she must find a way to cover start-up costs, so she goes to her friends and offers to let them in on the ground-floor:  they each invest a dollar in the hopes of sharing in the profits.  At the end of the story all the math works out nice-and-tidy, even allowing for sales tax.  In the back of the book, a two-page author’s note connects the dots for kids, explaining plainly the parallels between the story and the way the stock market works.

This nearly wordless book, illustrated all in black, white, and red, uses graphic-novel panels to tell the story of the day Bruno the Burglar tunneled his way out of the Big House and led the guards a merry chase through town all in his quest to take advantage of free sundaes being offered on Valentine’s Day.  It’s sometimes a bit difficult to discern the actual plot line, and when I did, I didn’t care much about it.

It’s a fine biography of a man I knew little of, but there’s nothing about it that really makes me want to recommend it particularly.  I don’t think students will be familiar enough with the scientist in question to be likely to pick it up on their own, and there doesn’t seem to be much to capture their attention if they did.  It’s not bad, but there’s probably better options available.  It does have a very sturdy binding.

Regardless of one’s political viewpoints, there’s no denying that Barack Obama did indeed make history when he became America’s first black president.  The wide variety of individuals covered in this “History Maker Bios” series come from all aspects of society.  The information is clearly written in a very readable voice, and well-illustrated with photos.  Given the opportunity, I would like to have more biographies from this series.

A beautiful story about the power of story.  The story is prefaced with a folktale told to the main character by is mother, and the body of the story tells of a young boy’s imagination being captures by this familiar folktale.  On an outing with his father, when young Jiro is left to explore a neighbor’s garden, he wanders into a tea house where he falls asleep and dreams he’s met the Crane woman from the folktale.  The way the story is told, the line between reality and dream is a blurry one.  The illustrations to an amazing job of capturing both the setting and the mood of the story.

Designed a bit like a guessing game, this fun look at the history of medicine is organized by ailment.  For each malady, it presents several remedies used throughout history, asking the reader to guess which if any had any actual benefit to the patients.  In the subsequent pages it addresses each remedy in turn, describing in more detail how and when and where it was applied, and sometimes why, answering the question as to its efficacy.  It’s a fun way to look at how far we’ve come, and to make the prospect of a trip to a modern doctor much more palatable, even if we are likely to face getting a shot. I think kids will be intrigued.