Mike Artell’s books make fantastic read-alouds for library story time for children aged 5 even up to middle school.  The Cajun language twist on Jack and the Beanstalk adds new flare and fun to a classic folk tale.  The illustrations are colorful and expressive and never frightening or too intense.  The story is told in a way that is a comfortable to read even for young children.  I highly recommend Jacques and De Beanstalk for elementary school libraries.

This latest Hank the Cowdog was funny, exciting and entertaining.    The author uses language and the dog’s perspective to create humorous situations throughout the story.  In this volume, Hank saves the ranch chickens from a pack of coyotes despite great temptation to join them in the chicken dinner.  Our students enjoy these books and they circulate frequently.  The book’s AR level is 4.4 and it is written for ages 8 and up.

While the subject of anorexia and bulimia is not an easy one to tackle, Kessler adds a touch of levity to the topic by bringing in a fantasy element.  Lisabeth Lewis is NOT an anorexic – she just watches what she eats.  Or so she convinces herself until she nearly overdoses on her mothers’ prescription medication, is visited by Death (who bears a surprising resemblance to a certain deceased rock legend), and is bequeathed the title of Famine.  In her newly appointed role as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Lisa begins to realize that her relationship with food is unhealthy.  Kessler does not shy away from unpleasant depictions of eating disorders, but Lisa’s sardonic personality shines through and gives the reader a reason to root for her.  The novel is not as powerful as Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls, but the supernatural tint will pull in readers who may not otherwise read about the topic.  Look for the sequel, Rage, coming out April 2011.

While set in a disturbing dystopian vision of the future, the world of this novel hits close to home.  Grace has been raised to be an Angel – one of the People of the Hills whose purpose in life is to die for her beliefs.  Grace is a suicide bomber, and when she sets off a bomb to kill one of the followers of the tyrannous ruler Keran Berj, her own death will bring her and her people honor.  However, when Grace decides that she would rather live than sacrifice herself, she finds herself on the run with another fugitive with a mysterious past.  This novel is largely introspective, and using succinct and philosophical language, Scott leads the reader towards truly understanding Grace, her world, and her struggle with the decision to live.  The parallels with our own world are apparent, and Scott does not skimp on violence or moral turmoil.  This book would be a perfect companion piece to a social studies lesson on the psychology of suicide bombers.

A picture book in rhyme by the author of the bestselling Pendragon series, the book is a direct homage to Dr. Seuss, Shrek!, and every book with the message of accepting yourself as you are.  Lala is an underground-dwelling, krinkle-nut-digging, gnome-like creature known as a rugabee.  She spends her days longing to live above ground, and one day decides to make her dreams come true and wander upwards.  When three mean princesses play a prank on her, Lala retreats back to the world she knows.  However, when the princesses find themselves in danger, it is only Lala who can come to the rescue.  The book is worth checking out for Boiger’s richly detailed watercolor illustrations, but in many places the story seems clichéd, and the Seuss-like rhymes are forced and not quite natural.  This is a sweet story about inner beauty and acceptance, but it borrows heavily from other, better books.

A wide-eyed elephant named Ben-Bobby and his goofy-looking sheep friend Doug-Dennis go to the circus, and it doesn’t take long for Doug-Dennis to steal his friend’s popcorn and lie about.  When his fib grows into a huge lie of epic proportions, Doug-Dennis soon realizes that the only way to return to earth is to tell the truth.  With busy, brightly-colored, cartoon-like illustrations, and a combination of traditional text and word-bubbles, Farrell brings his silly characters to life while at the same time espousing his message: lying is not a solution for anything.  The book effectively walks the line between moralistic and hilarious, and the vacant expressions of the characters and ridiculousness of the lies (“My nose is filled with green jelly beans”) mean that it’s a great tool for teaching children the value of telling the truth while also making them laugh.

Set in Sudan, A Long Walk to Water is based on the true story of Salva Dut who, in 1985 at the age of 11, was separated from his family and endured horrific trauma trying to escape war torn Sudan.  After escaping first to Ethiopia and then Kenya, Salva finally immigrated to the U.S. as one of the ‘Lost Boys’ and was adopted and raised by an American family.

As an adult, Salva returns to Sudan and is reunited with the family he thought he had lost. He begins humanitarian work with ‘Water for Sudan’, an organization that drills well in areas where people never before have had access to water without walking many hours a day to carry water back to their villages.

It is Salva’s well drilling that connects his story to that of Nya, a young girl when the reader is introduced to her in 2008. Nya struggles daily to walk many miles in the blazing sun to haul water for her family. Her daily struggle for survival intersects with Salva who, a generation earlir, also was a struggling child in the deserts of Sudan.

This true story is engaging and gripping. The ending is poignant and unexpected.

Written in the style of a parable, Jeffers’ beautiful book explores the love between child and grandparent, as well as the sadness of losing a beloved family member.  When a little girl loses her grandfather, she locks up her heart and loses her sense of awe of the world.  As the little girl grows up, she attempts to regain her heart and wonder, but finds herself unable until she meets another child whose eyes are still open to the beauty of the world.  With incredible mixed-media illustrations that mix photography, watercolor, parts of old books, and more, Jeffers creates a serene world of imagination and magic.  The characters are expressive, and the simple, touching story is a valuable tool to help a child, or even an adult, who may be going through a period of grief or experiencing loss for the first time.  The message will probably go over the heads of very small children, but the creativity and complexity of the illustrations alone are enough to incite conversation.  Be sure to remove the dust cover for even more amazing art!

Dillweed is a lonely child, and as a result he has become quite a dark, vengeful child.  When his parents abandon him to go off into the world and have their own adventures, leaving him in the care of the selfish Umblud and Perfidia, Dillweed takes matters into his own hands.  In the macabre tradition of Edward Gorey and Lemony Snicket, Heide’s book is hilariously disturbing.  Ellis (who has illustrated such books as The Composer is Dead by Lemony Snicket) has created washed out gouache illustrations that perfectly compliment Heide’s sparse, wicked prose, and her depictions of the unpleasant adults are delightfully grotesque.  While written at a low reading level, the morbid content of the book is more appropriate for older children and adults with an appreciation for dark humor– the fate of Dillweed’s parents and guardians is unpleasant, to say the least.

This is a simplified, easy to read overview of America’s involvement in World War II. The pluses of the book include an index, timeline, glossary of terms (by chapter), short chapters, many photographs, and a visually interesting lay out.  The minuses are that it is too simplistic to be a serious reference source. In the chapter ‘America at War’, there is no mention of the war’s affects at home: there is no mention of rationing, women working on the bomber assembly lines, and no mention of the Japanese internment camps.  In ‘Weapons of War’ there is no mention of the bombing of Dresden and other devastation caused by these new weapons. In ‘War in the Pacific’ the Bataan Death March is not mentioned by name, and there is no reference to the large number of U.S. casualties at Iwo Jima. The ‘D-Day’ chapter also fails to mention the U.S. casualties suffered in that invasion. ‘Victory’ shows a sanitized photo of post-atomic bomb Hiroshima.

Overall, this book is too simplified and short on key elements of the affect of America’s involvement in World War II for it to be of much help to students doing anything but the most cursory review of WW II.