Cece Meng

Tough Chicks is a story that proves girls can be smart, play in the mud, and do things that boys would do. It's a book that challenges our stereotypical gender roles. I liked this book for several reasons. The first reason is the characters are well developed and play an important part in the message of the story. The author doesn't explicitly say that the chicks are "tom-boys", but instead implies what that by saying "They wrestled the worms. They raced the bugs. They dove off the fence show more after pesky barn flies." Throughout the story the author shows how these chicks are not your typical "girl chicks". The second reason I like this book is the writing is engaging. Something I liked about the writing in this book was at the end of multiple pages the author had the sounds the chicks make. The author had the sounds "Peep, peep, zoom, zip, cheeeeeeep." I found that to be a creative and engaging aspect of the writing. Finally, the book pushes readers to broaden their perspectives about girls and what defines being a girl. The chicks in the book challenge gender roles and prove girls can do anything. Being a "good chick" doesn't mean being quiet and making a nest. It shows girl readers that they can do anything boys can do and it shows boy readers that girls can do anything just as good as they can. show less

Have you ever procrastinated on something so much that you end up cleaning rather than do it? That's the situation that the little boy in "I will not read this book," is in. This little boy would rather do almost ANYTHING over reading a book, including fighting sharks, chores, hanging off cliffs, battling tickling monkeys and warding off lightning storms. The boy speaks repetitively, adding on more and more activities until he has a long list of things that he would rather be doing than show more reading "this book." He admits that he doesn't want to read it because the words are hard and confuse him, and he reads at a slow pace. Eventually, he admits that if his mom catches him after hanging upside down from a cliff battling sharks and so on, that he will read the book with her, and the story ends.

The art for the story is rendered in a somewhat subdued color palate, although there are still some bright colors. The style of the art is somewhat cartoon like, but with advanced shading and character. This book will be excellent for a public library, as there are many students that struggle with reading that will relate to the themes of the book, and the book ends on a sweet note, with a mother and child reading a book together. The ending is slightly rushed though, and it may not be entirely believable for a child that would do almost anything to avoid reading suddenly be okay with it as long as his mother is there, who secretly has been there the whole time.Due to the volume of words, this title is recommended for advanced readers show less

When Mama finds a wishing star, she tries to make a wish for world peace, but she sneezes, and her kids insist she wished for world pizza - and that's exactly what they get. Different kinds of pizzas rain down all over the world, and everyone eats "until their bellies were full and everyone was happy." The gentle message is that solving world hunger, and bridging differences (by sharing different types of food with new friends, for example), can bring about world peace - or something close.

I absolutely completely adored this story, every page was a surprise and so funny. I picked up this book because I hate hiccups and I was curious to find out what exactly in the world could be so wonderful about them. Honestly the cover did not even occur to me to wonder why there was a hippo present at all. But the young boy does get the hiccups in the library and he just thinks that is the funniest thing ever because you have to be quiet in the library, so he is told by his sister to hang show more upside down and drink water which he finds even funnier because you are definitely not aloud to do that in the library. So the boy goes outside to hang upside down from a tree where he finds a hippo. The rest of the story is this journey that the boy, his little sister and the hippo take through town along with all of their library books. At one point his little sister ends up on the top of the library, the hippo burps really loud and the librarian falls from the sky onto the hippo. Eventually once all the library books are returned to the library the little boy is able to prove to his mother that he is responsible enough to have his own library card, which he can then use to rent books to read to his new hippo friend.

This story is all about cause and effect as well as simply taking care of your library books. My favorite part of the story is the end where it states very important library rules like: Do not feed your library books to strange animals, do not get books wet and especially keep them out of the toilet, always thank the librarians, and do not eat strawberry ice cream off of your books.

Additionally I loved looking at the drawings of the books on each page because they each had a title and I enjoyed finding out what hidden books where throughout. Like: 'The Anatomy of a Hiccup' or 'Don't Hiccup in my Soup' and 'Grandma's Wish'. show less