This book is all about money. In the attractive Lightning Bolt style, this book is from the Exploring Economics series and is all about the logistics of money. The book showcases earning money, goods and services, many kinds of jobs, making choices and spending money. Kids are intrigued with the idea of money and this book give a nice, basic explanation of money in general kids terms. The book ends with a wants vs. needs and save or spend activities, glossary, further reading and index. It would be a neat series to invest in to do a little unit on $$$ with younger grades.

This book is from the Lightning Bolt series, Colors Everywhere. The focus of this book is on the color, blue. The first chapter is on the relaxing world of blue and all the blue things one can find in the world (flowers, jeans, water and sapphires). Next, the book discusses the hues of blue. There is light blue, navy, turquoise, and periwinkle. There is also a chapter about feeling blue and what that means, like singing the blues. There is a chapter about a little girl whose favorite color is blue. At the end of the book, there is a neat activity page about blending colors, followed by a glossary, further reading and index. The pictures in this book are really high quality and I like the easy reading. The layout is nice and attractive. I would like to have the entire set. Children will enjoy it.

With the simple premise of wondering why elephants need the sun, author/illustrator Robert E. Wells gives simple explanations to some very complex concepts about our sun.  He tells of the sun’s importance in photosynthesis, the water cycle, gravity, and nuclear fusion.  He shows how people have created ways to use the sun – from telling time to generating energy.  His pen and watercolor illustrations are simple, colorful, and do an admirable job of helping to explain the often difficult ideas scientists have observed about our sun.  The layout is appealing and the cartoon nature of the book helps reduce the impact of advanced scientific terms.  This is a terrific resource for explaining the sun’s importance to plants and animals.  It will make an excellent addition to school and classroom libraries.

This book explores the science behind many common sayings and the old beliefs about our bodies.  It takes 17 such myths and gives an easy to understand explanation of what is actually happening.  Some of the beliefs discussed include: Can eating chicken soup cure a cold? Can listening to loud music cause hearing loss?  Should you wait a half hour after eating to go swimming?  Do humans really use only 10% of their brains?  The section on “Does an apple a day keep the doctor away?” includes a website about servings of fruits and vegetables.  this book has lots of color and easy to read sections of text.  Many pages have a “Did you know…” section.  The photographs are clear and focused.  Both photos and drawings are appropriate for the text.  In the back are the glossary, a bibliography, a list for further reading, an index, and acknowledgements for photos used in the book.

This is the cutest picture book about a little girl, Nellie Sue that is a cowgirl through and through. The problem is that she lives in the city and doesn’t have the most important thing, a HORSE! She comes up with a master plan for her birthday to get a horse, turning her house, yard and garage into a corral and paddock. Through her imagination, she lives the life of a cowgirl on her birthday, harvesting hay (raking leaves), rounding up cattle (gathering up the kids for the party) and riding her HORSE (actually her new bike!). A fun, cute story about every girl’s dream of having a horse and harnessing your imagination. The perfect story for every little girl who loves horses.

From the Xtreme Predators series, Big Cats tells about mountain lions, leopards & jaguars, cheetahs, lions, and Siberian tigers. Each predator is introduced on facing pages, with additional page (s) about each cat. The book has good information such as the size and habitats of these cats. There are also neat Extreme Quotes and Facts throughout the book in a nice visual, stand out box. The book ends with two sections on humans and cats, a glossary and an index. I think this book has great information for those elementary animal reports, but some of the pictures are a little graphic (bloody). They sure make these cats looks scary with the growling, fangs always out.

Meet the new ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN character for a younger reading audience , Klooz. He is a young boy detective who works for 5 packs of Carpenter’s Chewing gum.

In 5 chapters , Klooz solves the case, by being very sequential, organized, and observant.

Readers will enjoy the black and white sketches that accompany every other page of the story.

Translated by Ann Berge from German.

This chapter book, set in 1985 tells the story of two sisters moving to Salt Lake City and about their adventures in their new house. Thirteen year old Sadie, her new best friend, Bella and little sister, Zuzu discover a journal in a secret room in the attic. The journal chronicles the life of Helen, a little girl going through the  flu epidemic of 1918. The girls start almost living through the journal it is so intriguing while going through their own hardships of Bella feeling unloved by her mother and Sadie and Zuzu being very frightened of their stepmom giving birth. This book has a lot going on, but it just all fits together so nicely that it makes a wonderful read. I just loved it. The reader gets a little romance, some historical fiction, and deep family issues.

5 little crazy looking turkeys count down to Thanksgiving Day, as one after another, runs off in hopes of not ending up upon a Thanksgiving Day table.

66 word count

Wonderful high definition close up photos of the different stages in the life cycle of an apple tree with large print and simple sentences.

At first glance, the outline of the dark seed (p. 5) on the apple seed’s sprout is very difficult to discern from the book’s black background the photo is printed upon. Page 13 states , “The flowers fall off, and tiny green apples begin to grow.”  When in actuality only the petals fall off.