Josh Gregory

About a year ago I went to a 'Birds of Prey' live show and learned about a bunch of predatory birds, including vultures and came away thinking vultures were way neater than I gave them credit for previously. Then recently I was driving to work when I saw some vultures circling not far from the road and that renewed my interest so I decided to look for a library book about vultures.

This book was a good overview about these cool birds. I knew a little bit about them going into it based on show more that live show, but I definitely learned new facts almost instantly. For example, I did not realize that condors were considered part of the vulture family. Nor did I know how prevalent they are with habitats as diverse as savannas, rain forests, deserts, and more.

The book is broken down into relatively short chapters with subsections within them. Each subsection has a heading and is typically about a page long. This is good for young readers who might want to pause in reading with an easy spot to leave off / pick back up. More scientific or unusual words are in red font and then defined in a glossary at the back of the book. An index rounds out the backmatter along with a world map of where vultures live.

The illustrations in this book are gorgeous with full-color, full-page photographs of various different types of vultures (including one baby vulture) doing various things like gliding, feeding, nest building, etc. Sometimes this does include some slightly bloody bones or carcasses so some readers might think "ew" but in a book about vultures, it's kind of par for the course. show less

Published a scant few months after the storm, The Superstorm, Hurricane Sandy is a formulaic book - part of Scholastic's A True Book - Disasters series, which includes incidents past and present, such as the BP oil spill, the Hindenberg disaster and 9-11. Each book contains the cause, the event and the aftermath, as well as statistics, timeline, map, resources, photos and glossary.

Having lived through Superstorm Sandy, I admit to some skepticism about the quality of such hastily produced show more books, however, given the limited amount of time, and the impossible task of trying to measure the storm's "lasting impact" after only a few months, The Superstorm, Hurricane Sandy is an adequate account of the storm for middle-grade students. I appreciated the look into the storm's effect on the Caribbean - something that was largely missed by those of us who were coping with the storm's impact on our own lives.

more at http://shelf-employed.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-superstorm-hurricane-sandy-review... show less

This book is more advanced than the first informational book about sloths that I read and I definitely liked it much more. This Scholastic book not only talks about many of the different aspects and factors involving these slow animals, but also shows a wide variety of photographs to demonstrate what each section is describing to the reader. One reason that I really liked this book was because of the variety of information that it provided the reader. On page 25, the book talked about sloths show more as “ancient animals”. Not only did the author talk about the range of sloth species that roamed the earth, but they provided a caption for the picture of the ancient sloth skeleton; “Some ancient ground sloths were very large.” Then, if we look on another page, the author speaks to the reader about sloths in today’s world; “Scientists organize the sloth species still living today into two genera…three-toed sloths…two-toed sloths,” (p.33). The other reason that I really like this book was because of the combination of photographs and illustrations that were used to inform the reader about what the text really meant. On page 38, the author describes the disappearing habitat that the sloths are facing and then goes on to show the reader a picture on page 39 of a lumber worker chopping down a tree in the rainforest. If we then look to page 44 and 45, there is an illustrated map that demonstrates where there are large populations of sloths all over the world.
The main message of this book is to inform readers about the unusual animal, the sloth. Because there are so many different contributing factors to think of when talking about these animals, the author feels that it is almost necessary to describe to the reader what they can do to help the loss of sloth population. This book aims to show the wonders about these animals and gain empathy from its reader in order to help the cause of the loss of sloths. show less

This is a very basic and quick overview of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It's for the base level of player - very introductory. This would be a fun and easy way to show kids' friends what the game is about, without loading it up. It won't provide much for regular players of the game since there really aren't any major tips or in-depth elements. For anyone needing a base set of info, this will do the trick!