As a teacher who is "piloting" the Common Core this year, I am THRILLED to have been chosen to review this book. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!! I love the pre-assessment, which I can imagine using to form Guided Reading groups based upon the features that my students already know and have and those that they do not. The appendices in back are absolutely WONDERFUL. They are filled with extremely meaningful and informative resources. I can't wait to start planning our non-fiction instruction next week, because my teammates are going to love this book and all of the resources as well!! The only thing I wish I had was the CD that accompanies the book for the purpose of giving the pre-assessment with the book provided on the CD. I am going to research options for getting myself one of the CDs.

This was a fantastic book that taught me things I never knew about Henri Rousseau. The language is easy for students to understand and the artwork is fantastic (as it should be as a book about an artist). I will be sharing this book with the art teacher at my school for sure!

My students seem to be really enjoying this book. Although the kids who grab it are usually my lower readers, I think the story is easier to follow than the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, which has become so popular. The pages in my copy are falling out since so many kids grab it, so I'd be likely to purchase another copy.

I, too, was excited to read this book with Common Core coming, and I am always looking for a way to improve my guided reading. Overall, I was lacking interest in the book. I am hoping to have some time to more closely read it this summer since maybe then I will notice and appreciate something different about it. I liked the examples available, but would have liked to hear more examples. Like I said, I'll be rereading over the summer and will change my review if I'm more impressed.

This book was promising since I am a teacher, but the books are much too basic for anything I could teach. I would also not spend my money on a book with so few mini books. This book should be expanded to include more mini books to at least make its purchase worth the money.

This book would be very difficult for a child/student to access independently. There is FAR too much text on each page, and the vocabulary used to tell the story is far above the age-level of the students at which this book is targeted. The book's appearance looks very unprofessional, and I do not like the illustrations. It is a nice and essential feature that the audio CD was included with my copy of the book, because that is the only way that my students will be able to access this text independently. If I wanted to read it aloud to the class, I would have to treat it as a chapter book and could not read the entire thing in one day due to the large quantity of text.

This story tells a sweet story of friendship, but like the other reviewers, I struggled with the name of the Dragon. If a child were to attempt to read it (or a teacher) they would struggle with the name for sure. An easier name would have been easier for younger readers. I liked the inclusion of the recipe and the "study guide" at the end of the book. However, the religious implications may have to be carefully modified in a public school. The beginning of the story was quite abrupt, but otherwise it was a nice story that teaches a nice lesson, similar to a fable.

The "Great Idea Series" seems to be one that would interest any curious child. From reading "All Aboard!" I have inferred that the books in this series tell the history of some of the most important inventions known to man. This was the most fascinating part of the book. Not often do I consider trains, nor do I find them terribly interesting, but this book presented them in a way that made me feel like I was learning something new and was very interesting. I would love to see more books from this series describing other lesser-known, but still important inventions from the past.

As far as the actual story, I felt that the text was rather choppy. Many sentences seemed to end abruptly or did not connect well to preceding sentences. I did enjoy the pictures in the story, but felt that the lack of rhythm to the text would not engage young readers/listeners. However, I do think the idea is fascinating and should be improved by more natural-sounding writing.