Category Archives: Additional Purchase

Kingston and the Echoes of Magic, by Rucker Moses and Theo Gangi

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Since this book is the sequel to Kingston and the Magician’s Lost and Found , it took me a bit to figure out the plot at the beginning of the book. This is one that I think would be better read AFTER the first book in the series. Eventually, enough clues about what had happened to Kingston and his friends in the previous book allowed me to move forward with this one. The story is full of time portals, magical items, echo loops, and missing people. Kingston and his friends must save the world from another magician trying to reset it in an alternate reality. I enjoyed the dive into Egyptian mythology and the fast pace of the story though the twists in the plot may leave some readers puzzled. There were LOTS of twists and turns and characters met at different points in their lives which could be confusing if the reader isn’t really paying attention. If the reader loved the first in the series, I think this will help finish answering questions that must have been left unanswered. Skip this one if you don’t also have Book 1.

The Big Mix-Up! by Dana Regan

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With his moped and trailer, Mike delivers all over the town of Happy River. When Mike starts having trouble reading his blurry list, he makes mistakes with his deliveries. Finally Mike goes to see Doc Wells for an eye exam. With his new glasses he can now read his list and make the correct deliveries. An additional purchase for those looking for more books for emergent readers.

Currently there are two books in the Mike Delivers series.

Slow Down: 50 Mindful Moments in Nature by Rachel Williams

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Only by slowing down, you can truly appreciate the breathtaking complexity and precision of nature. Slow Down identifies fifty amazing natural processes and breaks down those processes into stages. Each of the 50 mindful moments starts with a statement connecting with the readers experiences followed by a brief summary. Over the next page and a half, the captions and illustrations walk the reader slowly through the highlighted moments.

Use as a tool to slow down and appreciate nature or as a model for sequencing or science writing.

Includes Table of Contents, Index, Further Reading (mindfulness and nature), and Selected Bibliography

Sylvie by Jean Reidy

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Sylvie the spider loves the people in her building and one day she notices that something seems wrong. Worried that not everyone appreciates a spider that calls attention to herself, she finds the courage to unite the people in the building. Finally she feels the appreciation and friendship that she has been longing for.

The author also wrote the book, Truman, and Truman the tortoise makes an appearance in this book as well. It was fun to see that tie in. The illustrations in the book are colorful and help tell the story, but the storyline is difficult to follow and requires inferencing.

I am I. M. Pei by Brad Meltzer

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I am I. M. Pei is a part of the Ordinary People Change the World Series by Brad Meltzer. It begins with I. M. Pei’s childhood and is told in the first person. The book is written in a conversational tone and the illustrator, Christopher Eliopoulos includes comic inserts on various pages. There is a lot of text on the pages, but it is broken up with illustrations. As a child, I. M. Pei is drawn as a miniature adult and in the pages where he is an adult, he is much shorter and more childlike than the other adults in the illustrations. This book is only a brief look at his life. The themes of persistence and grit come across throughout the biography. When talking about the renovation of the Louvre, there is a page with a pop-up Louvre. A timeline of his life and pictures of I. M. Pei are included at the end of the book.

Little Red and the Cat Who Loved Cake

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by Barbara Lehman and illustrated by Barbara Lehman

This wordless book is rich in illustrative storytelling The story chronicles a cat’s love of cake and the distress it is experiencing as the cake he sees being baked is obviously not intended for him. He follows Little Red as he goes to visit his grandmother, in hopes of receiving a piece of this cake. Instead, he settles for it in his dreams that night.

The story becomes endearing, at the end, when the author challenges the reader to find 24 lost sheep scattered thougouht the illustrations in the story. After this hunt, it really begins.There are four pages of pictures from the story, which have references to fairy tales or nursery rhymes and the reader is asked to find them Also included, is the full verse to every nursery rhyme and title to every fairy tale referenced. This book is recommend as a tool to open up rich discussion and discovery with a young child or classroom!

Trees

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by Tony Johnston, Illustrated by Tiffany Bozic

Large picture book with artistic pages celebrating the beauty of trees and the natural world. The artwork by Tiffany Bozic is stunning. The words are in prose, like a long poem separated into stanzas or lines on each page. This book would make a beautiful addition to a unit on trees, natural world, earth day, poetry month, or simply to revel in the beauty of the written words and artistic talent.

A nice addition is the last two pages of this book have an author’s note with additional facts and information about trees and forests, including the idea of of nine year old Felix Finkbeiner known as Plant-for-the-Planet. In order to stop global warming, children of all countries could plant one million trees. Also, Illustrators not about trees and Suggestions for Further Reading, and Resources as well as a sweet List of Trees in This Book, including thumbnail pictures.

In Our Garden

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By Pat Zietlow Miller and illustrated by Melissa Crowton

From a small idea to a rooftop garden, our mail character Miller sees her vision through to the end. She has recently moved to a big city from another country, where they used to grow their own food. She is inspired to work with her teacher and classmates to build a roof top garden, It took patience and hard work, but she didn’t give up. The whole community helps and shares the labors, building the beds, planting seeds and harvesting!

Darling pictures which feature students and staff in the community and school as varying ethnicity coming together as one~

The Brave Little Gorilla

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It’s got a really good message about not making judgments without all the facts. It tells about a little gorilla who’s been sent by his grandfather to pick up some eggs that crane offered to leave for them. But unfortunately a mischievous monkey decides to follow along and watch him from afar, and all along the journey that monkey misinterprets what he sees. Worse yet, the monkey shares his accusations with other jungle dwellers who accept them at face value. By the time the little gorilla is about to arrive home with his precious cargo, the others are ready punish him for a list of crimes he didn’t commit. Luckily he is rescued when a giant hippo emerges from the river with his little bird who corrects the accusatory monkeys by announcing he’d been up close and personal to all the gorilla’s transactions, and scolds them for making accusations based on things they have not seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears. Though I like the message, I thought both the telling of it and the illustrations were a bit flat.

The Little Book of Joy

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Okay, so I hate to be down on joy, and I’m not even really down on this sweet little book, I just don’t think it is meant to be a library book. It’s meant to be part of the decor in a nursery or children’s room, where it sits on display all year long and is occasionally pulled down to peruse for an idea. I almost even marked it as “reference,” but then that didn’t really seem to fit it, even though I imagine it being used kind of like a reference book for a bored kid. It’s got a page for every day of the year, with ideas for things to try, along with bits of information about that day’s topic and questions for kids to ponder. The illustrations are really sweet, but kind of keep the target audience young, even though older kids would be able to make more independent use of the information. My “additional purchase” recommendation is really kind of a compromise choice: I have a hard time recommending it for library use, but would absolutely recommend it as a gift for a baby shower.