Stephanie St. Pierre

I had mixed feelings about this book. I really liked the illustrations, they were the best part of the book for me. I also liked that the language was very descriptive. However, I didn't like the way that the writing flowed through the book. I felt like there was no clear sequence or conclusion. Though I did like the big idea which was to expose children to the idea of an ecosystem and it's inhabitants.

The Adventures with Barbie series was originally published in the early 90's and has since been reissued in a variety of countries with various reading orders - sometimes under the same names but not always. In Australia, this series was reissued as Barbie Sweethearts and featured covers with Barbie dolls. The series follows Barbie on her every day adventures featuring recurring characters, different careers, new places and friends and some mysteries. Barbie always has a smile and is always show more willing to lend a hand, making this a perfect series for tween readers.

In Wildlife Rescue Barbie, Ken and Kira go to Africa to photograph the endangered animals for a charity calendar but on their first night they run into trouble from poachers. Jim, their guide, explains that the poachers hunt the local wildlife, in particularly targeting elephants for the ivory that their tusks are made of. The gang see first hand how this affects the elephant families when they find a baby elephant wander into their camp - dusty, injured and hungry. When the poachers won't stop coming after the baby elephant, Barbie comes up with a plan to poach the poachers.

I enjoyed this one. It's a bit more intense than the others in the series. It reminded me of Holiday in the Wild on Netflix (great film btw) - but without the romance and humour. Well it had a little humour I guess. My rating 3 stars. Target audience, 4 stars. show less

The Adventures with Barbie series was originally published in the early 90's and has since been reissued in a variety of countries with various reading orders - sometimes under the same names but not always. In Australia, this series was reissued as Barbie Sweethearts and featured covers with Barbie dolls. The series follows Barbie on her every day adventures featuring recurring characters, different careers, new places and friends and some mysteries. Barbie always has a smile and is always show more willing to lend a hand, making this a perfect series for tween readers.

In Dancing the Night Away, Barbie is asked by her friend Christie to plan a Dance-a-Thon for Children Charities annual fundraiser. But Lynn Madison is not happy with Christie's choice and is determined to cause trouble if she can't be the star of the show. Barbie's roped everyone she knows into helping and everything is going well until her checklist is stolen and things start going wrong. First the food turns up early, she almost forgets to pick up the awards and she twists her ankle while rehearsing. She knows Lynn was the one who took her list and Barbie decides to kill her with kindness to get things back on track.

I didn't hate this book but Lynn annoyed me - the logic behind Lynn's actions was just dumb. If she wanted to be on stage dancing - why didn't she volunteer to do that? And her comment about not wanting to do the hard work while Barbie gets the applause was ridiculous. I'm not sure she understands what being in charge requires because she follows that comment with "If I can't be the star, then why should I do anything?" - maybe because it's a charity event and your job? Maybe because being a star of the show and being in charge are two different things?

Still, Barbie solves the issues with tact and diplomacy. I liked how she gave Lynn an out to hand the list back without confronting her and I thought it was smart to keep Lynn occupied so she couldn't cause any further trouble. And I enjoyed the way she used their food trip to drum up interest in the Dance-a-Thon.

Target audience 4 stars, my rating, 3. show less

I was expecting to love this story because as a child, the Rugrats were my favorite characters. However, I ended up having mixed feelings. I really loved the plot and the characters but I think the writing was just too simple and not challenging at all to the reader. The plot focused on imagination of the babies on a long car ride. The babies pretended to be astronauts to make their car ride more enjoyable and it followed them through an adventure “in space.” I thought this plot was very show more creative and great for young readers because it encourages a resourceful imagination. Imagination is such an important thing for young children and this story’s plot really showed imagination. I also thought the plot was enticing because it taught the reader about the abstract concept of space in a simple, fun way. The characters were so fun and realistic to me. Maybe I enjoyed the characters so much because I was familiar with the Rugrats, but I thought the character development was great. It really showed Angelica as the bossy, annoying older cousin when she said “Argh! You babies can’t do anything right. Blast off!” The author also did a great job portraying Tommy as the inventive, creative baby, Chuckie as the timid backup to Tommy, and the parents as the clueless individuals they are. While I loved the plot and characters, the writing just was too underdeveloped and not challenging. There was no descriptive language and no complexity to the words. I don’t think this book would be a challenge at all to young readers, which would be a problem in a classroom. The main ideas of this book were that imagination could take you to worlds unknown and help you discover magical things. I thought this story was very cute and interesting, just could use some more complex writing. show less