Four More Picture Books by Various Authors

 Genre: Picture Books                    Source:  Purchased

Books for Benjamin by R.G. de Rouen

I absolutely loved this book. Benjamin is a worm. Unlike his family who lives on the rotten fruit and vegetables the store owner throws out, Benjamin prefers reading. He slips into the store one night to hide inside a paper. His idea is to be taken to a home where he can read books. Instead he is almost eaten by a parrot. Read this wonderful adventure to see if he succeeds in finding books to read. Cute, while showing the value of reading. There is extra information at the end of the book about libraries.

Night Cats by Pippa Pralen

This is the story of cats that are homeless. One day when the author left a restaurant she saw a hungry cat and decided to feed it. That was the beginning of her adventure.  I loved this book because of the humorous pictures. At the end she has pictures of the cats she takes care of. I could understand. We inherited five semi-feral cats from a gentleman across the street. He had been feeding them and took them to the vet to be fixed. When he passed he left them to us in his will. We still have four of them.  I couldn’t imagine not helping them.

 

The Unusual Penguin by Madeleine MacRae

I loved this book.  A penguin finds a lone egg on the ice with no one around. She takes it home and cares for it. When it hatches she proudly takes care of her son. When he begins school it is quite apparent he doesn’t fit in. He can’t seem to do what the other penguins do. He doesn’t even look like them.  There is a reason for this, but I won’t tell.  A great book about being proud of who you are and not worrying if you aren’t like each other.  We need to celebrate our differences.

 

This is Not Enough by Anna Kang

Two friends try to find gifts for each other to show how much they care.  Neither of them think what they have chosen or made is enough.  However as we learn, when it comes to friends, the love they show us in whatever form is always enough.  Cute little book about friendship.

Three Lovely Books by Lois Petren

Genre: Picture Books
Source: Purchased

Lulu and Lainey…the Lucky Day – Lois Petren

Lulu visits her grandmother with her knitting. Her grandmother suggests they take their knitting to the park. She watches the bees, plays with a boat, watches the ducks and then they go to the carousel. This was her favorite spot. Today was lucky because she caught the ring. They find a place to sit and eat and knit. Suddenly a squirrel grabs her favorite yarn she calls Lainey.  An adventurous quick read. You must read it to find out if her luck holds out.

Lulu and Lainey…a Christmas Yarn – Lois a. Petren

It is Christmas time and Lulu visits her grandmother with her knitting basket. After lunch she sits down prepared to make her brother a beautiful scarf from Lainey. Lainey her green yarn is not in her basket. She sees her grandmother’s cat playing with it, and then it disappears. Her grandmother gives her some red yarn to use for the scarf.  But, what happened to Lainey and will she find it?

Lulu and Lainey…at the Farm – Lois Petren

Lulu is excited. They are going to visit their grandparents on their farm. She loved visiting the farm. She loved the sheep named Lainey the best That is where her soft yarn come from. Her grandmother takes her out to the barn and shows her the new baby goat. That night her grandmother asks a special favor from Lulu. Read the book to see how Lulu and Lainey help out her grandmother.

Three More Cute Picture Books

Genre: Picture Books
Source: Purchased

The Little Mouse in My House – Adisan Books

A cat goes out to catch a fish for his dinner. When he returns he finds a mouse has moved into his house. He tries staring at him, scaring him, offering him cheese. The little mouse ignores him. The cat just really wants the mouse out of his house. Very cute bedtime story.

 

Parker & Penny Save the Penguin Olympics – Brent Stradford

Penny and Parker are penguins. They wake up excited. It is the day of the penguin Olympics. When they get down to the Olympic playing field they see their friends. Their friends are sad. There is a big ice block in the middle of the field. They try to move it on their own. When they can’t move it they have to think of another way.  This is a great book about friendship and teamwork. It leaves a message of never giving up.

 

Honey Bee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera – Candace Fleming, Eric Rohmann

Think you know everything there is about honey bees?  I used to think that. Then my husband became a bee keeper and I realized I actually knew nothing about them.  In this book, the author takes you through the life of a bee, which is approximately 35 days long. The end of the book is fabulous. The author has included a page that tells you about the body parts of the bee and what each part does. Then they have included information on what you can do to help the bees.  Very informative book.  Read it and find out like I did, what you thought you knew, but didn’t.

Three Wonderful Books by Darcy Pattison

Genre: Children's Picture Books, Early Chapter Book
Source: Purchased

Diego is a Galapagos Tortoise originally from the Island of Española. Over 200 years beginning in the early 1600s the tortoises were harvested for food.  Scientists visiting the island in the early 1900s found only three tortoises. A female laid eggs and a short time later they found the tortoise they would eventually name Diego. He lived in the San Diego Zoo. 

The book is all about how scientists work together to try to protect near extinct species. Once again I learned so much. I definitely recommend this book.

I have to say I love this author’s books. I teach 8^th grade, yet I put her scientific books on my shelves because my reluctant readers will pick them up. Then I hear them talking about what they learned.

This book has two parts on each page. The author takes you through the history

of the 1919 eclipse. In a second box she adds more detailed information. This is what my eighth grader enjoy.  I myself had never known about the first eclipse photographed, and what they learned from it.  I highly recommend this book.

I have to say I love this author’s books. I teach 8^th grade, yet I put her scientific books on my shelves because my reluctant readers will pick them up. Then I hear them talking about what they learned.

This book has two parts on each page. The author takes you through the history of the 1919 eclipse. In a second box she adds more detailed information. This is what my eighth grader enjoy.  I myself had never known about the first eclipse photographed, and what they learned                                        from it.  I highly recommend this book.

Student Saturday: Monster Blood for Breakfast by R.L. Stine

 

Genre: Upper Elementary, Middle Grade, Horror

Student Reviewer: Landon M.

This book, Monster Blood for Breakfast by R.L. Stine is a horror story that you do not want to miss. it is full of action and excitement. The setting is both at Matt Daniel's the main character's house, and his school. Matt is an athletic person. He is on the school swim team.  Bradly Wormser is his friend next door. They call him worm because he is super skinny.  This book is about two friends, Matt and Bradley. matt is strong and on the swim team. So, Bradley orders something called monster blood. Bradley brings it over to Matt's house and explains to him what it is and what it does. Bradley says that it is monster blood and if he eats it, he will be strong like Matt. He explains that Monster blood is dangerous, and he will get rid of it the next day.  But, they have a science project and Matt is mad at Bradley for stealing his idea. So, the morning that Matt has a swim meet he puts the monster blood in Bradley's cereal. When Matt goes upstairs to change his shirt Bradley noticed Monster Blood and switched cereals with Matt. The monster blood does not just make him stronger, it makes him a lot bigger. Now he must do the swim meet because his teammates depend on him.

Will he figure out how to be normal again, or will he have to be like that forever? Find out and read Monter Blood.  In this book  when he grew super big from accidentally eating the monster blood, I thought while reading this book of something I would have done. Something I would have done is try to throw up the monster blood. Another thing I would have done is act like I was sick and not go to the swim meet.  

This book was full of adventure and excitement. I thought it would have been scarier, but it was it was still good, and I still enjoyed it. I would recommend this book to ages 10-14 and to people who enjoy adventure. Also, for people who like excitement this book would be for you. 

Four Wonderful Books By Sarah Read

Genre: Children's Picture Books
Source: Purchased

A cute picture book that introduces to different unicorns with names that show their feelings. The book not only teaches kids about different feelings, but that it is okay to have them. In some cases it give them information on how to deal with them.

This is similar to many others the author has written. This is a book about feelings. Her characters are dinosaurs. The illustrations are wonderful. The setting for each dinosaur helps bring the picture to life, as well as the story. Since our youngest child learns to love reading through being read to. They will pick up a book with wonderful pictures first. This is one of those books.

This should be a book read to every kid getting ready to begin first grade. Through different animals we learn what first grade is about and how much fun it will be. The animals all show such excitement for first grade. Another great book by this author

Let me start by saying the cover of this book is adorable. It is full of dinosaurs in pajamas. A sweet bedtime story showing the dinosaurs preparing for bed. The author has covered quite a few. Most are well known to children, but some even I had not heard of. Cute way to prepare children for sleep.

Day Two Picture Books by Luna Lark

 Genre: Children's Picture Books

Source: I purchased

This is similar to the author’s egg book about feelings.  We have little dragons express a series of emotions, fear, joy, shyness, sorrow.  Each dinosaur is illustrated in a color that we usually associate with that emotion. Another cute book to have that talk with your child to explain emotions they may not understand and give them  ideas about how to handle them.

 

I love the way the author has each animal performing a night time ritual such as washing their hands or curling up for the night. This book gives the child a feeling of being loved by their mother and going to sleep feeling safe and secure.

 

A calm way to end the night is by reading about zoo animals as they prepare to go to sleep. As each animal snuggles with their parent a sense of calm surrounds them. A calming way to put your young one to sleep each night.

Day One of Picture Books By Luna Lark

 Genre:  Children's Picture Books

Source:  I Purchased them.

This picture book has some of the most gorgeous illustrations I’ve seen in a long time. It is a simple
bedtime story of forest animal big brothers, letting their siblings know they love them. They show this through reading bedtime stories to them. They run through the meadows with them. Watch the moon, take night walks and howl at the moon together. They gather nuts, sit and snuggle. All of these things we do with our young ones and it makes it so relatable.

A great picture book for explaining to young children that it is okay to have all kinds of emotions and feelings. It also explains what they can do to handle those emotions. I enjoyed this because I often hear parents that it is not okay to get mad about something. They are essentially telling their kid that you can only have certain feelings.  Instead this book gives them a way to handle them all. I loved the fact that each egg was colored in a way most of us think of feelings. For example we are angry we think of red, sad we think of blue.   Simple and cute way to talk about feelings.

A great story to read before bedtime. It shows little dinosaurs with their mothers doing things together. They brush their teeth, have cookies and milk, meditate, read, listen to music.  All of these things are done to get the little one prepared for a good night sleep.

Summer Math Bridge by MamTalk

 

Genre: Children’s workbook
Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

 

For this review I am going to step into my teacher mode. I am currently teaching middle school English. However, my background is in elementary education. I started out teaching kindergarten. This would have been a wonderful book for that age.  I love the idea of using it to bridge the summer months when we see so many students slide backwards.

This book is geared towards children ages 5-7. It’s table of contents breaks it into  parts. Part one is learning numbers. The idea is that children learn their numbers or reinforce their learning by counting, tracing, and coloring.  Part two is all about counting. Kids count the shapes and circle the correct number, leading up to coloring, counting and writing the correct number. Part three is all about comparing things. They start out drawing lines from the same number to the same number shapes. They move on up from that to more, less, fewer, bigger and smaller.

Part four is about putting objects inside, outside, to the right, left, top or bottom of shapes. This section reinforces direction and shapes and of course there is plenty of coloring to make it interesting. Part five is all about recognizing patterns. I believe this is an area student  don’t get enough practice with. When asking middle school students to recognize patterns in different subjects, and especially math, many struggle. Maybe if they had a book like this when they were younger they wouldn’t struggle so much in middle school.

Part six is all about recognizing size, such as big, small, tall, short, long.  This not only asks the child to recognize  the difference, but is teaching the youngest child important vocabulary words they will need to be successful in school. Part seven introduces them to basic, simple addition. We start with simple shapes, fingers and finally writing and adding the numbers. Part eight is your basic subtraction. It is handled very similar to the basic addition. Part nine  is naming the basic shapes. Some of this is more of a reinforcement as they will have been introduced to many of the shapes throughout the workbook.  Connecting real life objects to the basic shapes help with that reinforcement, as does making them choose the shape that is different.

So, putting my teacher hat back on for a minute, only because my grandkids are in upper elementary or have graduated. This is a book I would recommend to parents of all young children who would like to keep the learning fresh over the summer. With this book it can be done in as little as ten to fifteen minutes.

The Bully Book by Eric Kahn Gale

Genre: Elementary and Middle Grade Realistic Fiction

Source: I own a copy.

 

This book is loosely based on bullying the author faced when he was in elementary school. His main character represents so many kids today. Erick Haskins was looking forward to his last year in elementary school. He hasn’t seen his best friend Donovan all summer. When his best friend walks past him and sits with the bullies he doesn’t know what to think. When the Jason calls him the “grunt” he isn’t sure why. He has always tried to stay out of trouble. He has managed to stay out of the way of the school bullies. This year they have decided he is low man on the totem pole, the grunt. As we go through the year with Erick we see his journal of thoughts and learn that there is a “Bully Book”. The book is about his hunt for it. If he can just find it and read it then maybe he will know why he was chosen as the grunt, how to stop being the grunt, and maybe, just maybe prevent this from happening to someone else. If there is one thing he has learned this year is that leaving elementary school as a grunt, can carry over into the next year.

I think this was a eye opener for me. I am a teacher so not necessarily the target audience for this book. However, some of the subtle things I saw happening in the book are things that often happen in today. I had a couple of students who were the target of bullies. I tried my best to stop it in the classroom. Once they left my room I was often unable to protect them. As a teacher this is very disturbing. At one point one of my students stood up for the weak child. She called out the bullies on an issue I had not seen. They work under the radar I have learned. She then looked at this kid and said, “You have got to start standing up for yourself.” He chose to take whatever they gave out and just live with it. Talking to admin. Doesn’t always help.  I now know why my students passed this book around and when they finally put it on my desk, told me I needed to read it. It has characters and situations they can identify with, which makes them feel like they are not alone