"This is metafiction done very well; it's actually three stories in one: Goldilocks', Papa Bear's, and of course, the one read by the Narrator character. All will have children chortling. (Picture book. 5-9)"
Fractured versions of familiar tales never seem to get old; they're almost always funny, especially with a main character as hilariously abashed as this one.
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"Calling out to history buffs and scientists, this will inspire young inventors. (Picture book/biography. 6-10)"
From an early age "Aleck" (Bell's family nickname) evinced an interest in sound and hearing, probably due to his father's profession of speech therapy and his mother's hearing loss.
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"Not the least of the music made here will be in a sing-along read-aloud, with accompanying guffaws to mark the time. (Picture book. 2-5)"
Bunting is perhaps best known for her skirmishes with heavy weather—racism, riots, homelessness, war—but that is not to deny her talent for pure whimsy, and that is what she delivers here.
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"Certainly, it won't take a mammoth lover to enjoy the hijinks of these sweet, ancient boneheads. (Fiction. 4-9)"
Like a prehistoric precursor to Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy, Ogg and Bob show the ups and downs of friendship in an age of wooly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers.
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"A nifty approach to problem solving, a peek at the difference between diurnal and nocturnal and a good argument as to why light sleepers should not keep a hamster as a pet. (Picture book. 2-6)"
"EWSLUGp1985 or Marc Brown's D.W.'s Library Card (2001), this artfully conveys both the basics of how most libraries are organized, and a sense of why they're the place to be. (Picture book. 5-7)"
Opening and closing with a handful of precious but on-target ground rules—"To keep the books looking new, never mark, draw, cut, or glue"—this barely disguised tutorial follows a mouse and his human classmates through a week's worth of visits to their school library. I.Q. wants the storybook Mrs. Binder, the librarian, reads on Monday, and on each successive day he gets closer to finding it—meanwhile discovering the fiction, nonfiction, and nonprint sections, making a bookmark, using the online catalogue, and at last getting his own library card.
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"Fraser's overall handling is tender, totally focused on the development level of the reader, and sensitive to the needs of the young student who will be learning just like I.Q. Now on to camp. (Picture book. 5-7)"
All through the school year, I.Q., the class's pet mouse, wants to be student of the week; he has done everything the class has done, but everyone seems to ignore him as a candidate, regardless of his attentiveness to the literary arts, science, math, crafts, and recess.
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"No new ground is broken here, but baby animals do have an eternal appeal to the young of the species that can read. (author's note) (Nonfiction. 5-7)"
This addition to the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series offers a broad look at the way young animals are protected by their parents and by their own instincts.
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"Naturalistic illustrations provide stills of each animal against deep blues, teals, and aquamarines; endnotes explain where nocturnal animals hide during the day. (Picture book. 3-6)"
PLB 0-06-027718-1 paper 0-06-445176-3 This Stage 1 entry in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series focuses on eight common nocturnal creatures, from the barn owl to the harvest mouse.
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"The scenes evoke the California terrain and climate; the book has region-specific uses, but will appeal to readers in any part of the country. (maps, diagrams, chronology, further reading) (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-10)"
Fraser (One Giant Leap, 1993, etc.), in her specific portrait of one mission in southern California, gives a broad historical perspective of the settlement and development of the state.
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Based on authoritative sources, a vivid account of the Apollo 11 mission by the author of On Top of the World: The Conquest of Mount Everest (1991).
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In the context of building the entire Transcontinental Railroad, a detailed account of April 28, 1869, when—as the result of a $10,000 wager—Central Pacific crews laid a record- setting ten miles of track.
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A dramatic recreation of that final, climactic morning in 1953 when New Zealand beekeeper Edmund Hillary and his veteran Sherpa companion, Tenzing Norgay, climbed the last 1100 feet to stand on Earth's highest point.
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