Reviews
Infinity and Me
“Swiatkowska’s imaginative artwork combines the free-wheeling, slightly eerie absurdity of Monty Python animations, the formality of nineteenth-century decorative patterning, and the playful nerdiness of Leonardo da Vinci-styled inventions. For math and language arts teachers View →
Little White Duck: A Childhood in China
“‘Little White Duck’ isn’t Communist propaganda. It is at once more innocent and more sophisticated. What Liu and Martínez do is convey a child’s-eye view of a country in transition. Politics, culture and history play into their stories, but the… View →
The Day Louis Got Eaten
“The art is cartoony, in pen and ink with bright watercolors, and the book’s layout borrows from comic strips as well; the narrative is cleverly visualized in a succession of softly edged panels teeming with delightful action words, like ‘raar,’… View →
The Mitzvah Magician
“In this sweetly energetic story with brightly colored pictures to match, Marshall simplifies the Jewish concept of mitzvah (‘giving back’ as a moral and religious obligation), making the idea more accessible to preschoolers by linking it to a child’s everyday world.… View →
Jeremy's Dreidel
“Jeremy longingly eyed the poster on the wall of the Jewish community center. There was going to be a dreidel workshop on Monday and the only thing that kids were asked to do was to ‘bring your own ideas!’ Just maybe he had an idea to bring. Abby and David, who were… View →
Four Secrets
“‘There is a secret story and it is inside of another secret story and that one is inside of another secret story,’ writes Katie, and the four secrets, one about each of the teens, are satisfyingly juicy yet given depth by Willey’s understanding of the… View →
Jeremy's Dreidel
“Jeremy and his friends are enjoying the dreidel-making workshop at their local Jewish Community Center, especially since the children are being encouraged to be creative and put their own, er, spins on their designs. Jeremy decides to make a Braille dreidel for his blind father,… View →
Let's Make a Circle Graph
“The instructions are clearly written and the illustrations that support the creation of the graphs are helpful…. Overall, these books provide strong simple instructions and will give teachers solid supplemental material when teaching graphing.” —School… View →
Battle of the Dinosaur Bones: Othniel Charles Marsh vs Edward Drinker Cope
“Packed with photos, maps, and diagrams, this orange-and-gray-heavy book emphasizes the importance of the scientific method on evaluating hypotheses and the misconceptions that arise with shoddy research. Dinosaurs are a topic of interest for many kids, and this well-researched… View →
Emanuel and the Hanukkah Rescue
“With softly lit pastel artwork and a clear, exciting narrative, this picture book blends the history of Jewish persecution with a young boy’s role in a gripping rescue story. In eighteenth-century New Bedford, Massachusetts, nine-year-old Emanuel’s father owns a whaling supply… View →
The Normal Kid
“Told in the voices of Sylvan and Charity, this novel offers a well-balanced look at two kids who are realizing how events affect individuals—and how they themselves are affected deeply by events they want to ignore… Fans of school stories by Gary Schmidt or Jerry Spinelli… View →
Can You Tell a Gecko from a Salamander?
“Varied close-up and annotated photographs accompany a lively text that compares and contrasts geckos, which are reptiles, with salamanders, which are amphibians. Areas covered include birth and growth cycles, physical differences, and defensive techniques of each species. The… View →
Can You Tell a Cricket from a Grasshopper?
“Varied close-up and annotated photographs point out the differences and similarities between these two often-confused insect species. Readers learn how to distinguish between grasshoppers and crickets as well as how they sing, chirp, and grow. Though busy, the colorful layouts… View →
The White Zone
“Cousins Nouri, a Shiite, and Talib, half Sunni, describe life in Baghdad amid the second Iraq War, during which Iraqis also fought amongst themselves over religious differences. But in winter 2008, snow covered the city for the ‘first time in anyone’s memory,’ sparking View →
“Escaping evil Lady Gall, Jasper’s family flees by ship, mistakenly leaving him behind. Boarding an odd vessel called the Traveling Restaurant, Jasper learns more about his family’s role in the Great Accident that removed magic from Fontania and his own potential role in restoring… View →
Their Skeletons Speak: Kennewick Man and the Paleoamerican World
“Walker and Owsley… build the narrative clue by clue, first in determination of the find’s importance, then through a richly detailed portrait of the practice of anthropology.” —The Horn Book Magazine View →
The Count's Hanukkah Countdown
“Sesame Street mainstays Grover and the Count star, with new Israeli friends Avigail and Brosh, in this Shalom Sesame celebration of Hanukkah. Eight friends and family members—’the perfect Hanukkah number,’ by the Count’s refrain—come together to light the menorah,… View →
A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return
“Stark, dramatic illustrations (mostly black backgrounds with white-outlined characters and features) include repeated motifs (flowers, dragons) that effectively capture elements of the culture and lend nuance to the high emotions through small changes in expression or detail. A… View →
¿Sabes algo sobre mamíferos? (Do You Know about Mammals?)
“If your school offers science curriculum instruction in Spanish, this series is a ‘must-have’ addition.” —Library Media Connection View →
El ciclo del agua (Earth's Water Cycle)
“Young children will be attracted to the colorful photographs that enhance the large text.” —Library Media Connection View →
H.O.R.S.E.
“The freewheeling format and broadly popular topic makes this eminently saleable as either a readalone or readaloud.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books View →