This was a wonderful middle grade science fiction story and there aren't a lot of those for this age group. I liked how it dealt with anxiety and didn't shy away from some hard questions without giving trite answers. It doesn't attempt to imagine solutions to a lot of our problems we face today but rather focuses on attitude and personal growth, which is a great message, because the only thing we truly can control is ourselves. There were some annoying things I found with the main character but that was simply because she is a realistic tween and tweens can be annoying. I'll be passing this book along to my 14 and 11 yo's and recommending it to my librarian friends for elementary and middle school.

How to Draw 100 Animals is a thorough and typical how-to-draw book with a wide variety of cartoonish animals. I read the e-book version and found that the formatting would be fine to draw from on a tablet or even a phone but there were A LOT of animals! For that reason I would prefer a paper version to easily flip back and forth and decide which animal to draw. Some were easier and some were harder but I think most kids would find something to enjoy drawing in this book.

This is a middle grade novel and a spin off of another series but you don't need to read the other series first. I read the first chapter and skimmed it and realized that I did not feel like reading a middle school drama that seemed very similar to most other middle school dramas so I handed it off to my 14 year old to review. Here is her review:

"This book was cute. There were couple different plot threads going on and it would have been better to focus on just one. There was things with her family, things with her old best friend, romance, getting use to school, and it all was a bit complicated. It was fun and easy to read though."

We will be passing this book onto a local 5th grade classroom and expect they will enjoy it too.

A good clean adventurous romance novel. The main character shows positive growth through the book- a good message about forgiveness and not holding on to hurt feelings and seeing beyond one's self.

This book arrived in the mail on the afternoon of a playdate and I soon had a pile of kids, ages 1-13, gathered around me wanting to listen to this story about a little bush plane. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the book, along with all the kids. We voted and it got 5 stars! I enjoyed that it talks about different kinds of aircraft and it felt like we were learning about them while being entertained. The rhymes were good (I HATE when kids' books have uneven rhymes) and the pictures were engaging. In addition, there is the timeless message of "The Little Engine That Could" of never giving up.

It's nice to see a MG book that deals with issues of religious faith while still being positive towards religion. It also addresses many of the issues that military children must face. It would be a good book for children of service members.

A fun clean romance with a strong female lead who doesn't let anyone push her around. A bit of adventure with lots of interesting historical facts and descriptions of Yellowstone. An enjoyable read!

My children LOVED this book and as an adult, I enjoyed it too. The illustrations were colorful and engaging. The text was interesting. I don't always love cutesy rhyming books without a storyline but I found myself looking forward to each new page, to see what jobs/skills the author and illustrator would hint at. The mirror at the end was a surprise that my 8 yo enjoyed and she loved the poster that was hidden on the flip side the book jacket. She quickly claimed it for her wall.

I received the book through librarything.com in exchange for my honest opinion but this is a book that I would choose to include in our personal library collection and it's definitely a plus for any school or public library.

This is not the most complex engrossing book ever but it does what it intends to do... gets kids thinking like engineers, seeing how they can solve a problem, trying, failing and trying again. In this fun and silly story, three kids magically appear on a rock near the shore to a beautiful tropical island but they cannot reach the shore by swimming or walking. They work together to figure out how to build a bridge. Three extra chapters at the end have the characters encouraging the reader to try out their own stem challenges and extra research about the topics found in the book. This is not a book grown ups will love for themselves but I would totally use it in an elementary classroom to introduce STEM concepts and as part of a bridge building unit.

The paperback book itself is very nice printed and sturdily bound. The drawings are cute and engaging.

I started reading this aloud to my 8yo daughter and pretty soon my kids (ages 4, 10, and even the 13yo) were listening to the adventures of Ivy the doll. The kids liked the message that even though being forgotten is hard and sad, it means that you can be found again. I think that translates well to the message that sad and hard things are a part of life but good things can come after. The kids also liked the different toy characters. There was a tiny bit of peril but not enough to make my kids want to stop reading (they don't like tense situations in books and movies)- the 4 yo only got worried and hid his head once. So it's a good gentle read for sensitive kids. The kids also really enjoyed the detailed black and white drawings on almost every page. They are eagerly looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

"I liked it because it was really fun and cool. I loved it because she learned a lesson that when you are toy, you don't always have to only have one friend. And if somebody forgets you, it's ok, you can be found again." (8 yo reader)

I received this book from LibraryThing in exchange for my honest review.

This realistic story is about a girl who saves a boy from dying and thinks she's in love with him, though she isn't really since she doesn't know him. There is a bit of mystery when she tries to find out who hit the boy. It's kind of funny and also a bit about her real life problems. The message of the book is that just because you do something bad doesn't make you a bad person and that we shouldn't jump to conclusions. (This was written by my 13 yo daughter who stole the book from me while I was reading it. A note from mom: I appreciate a middle grade book that addresses adolescent crushes, demonstrating that we can get wrapped up in the excitement of "liking" someone when we don't even know the real person. It is a nice change from all the books out there where the teens see each other across the room and instantly fall into lust and it all works out in the end- those kinds of books drive me crazy and I don't let my kid read them.)
I received a free copy of this book from LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.

I like this book because it was fun. It was an adventure story with magic. It also had a good message about the importance of spending time with your family. The characters were normal people from our world but magical things happen to them which makes it a lot of fun to read. I recommend this book for tweens and up. I look forward to reading the rest of the series! (written by my 13 yo daughter who stole the book from me before I could read it.)

My kids, age 4, 7, and 9 enjoyed being read aloud this book. It's their first exposure to a lot of the ideas in chemistry and so they had lots of questions about what I was reading to them. My son wanted to know why there were no men in the book so that was a whole other conversation. The illustrations were colorful, and eye-catching without being overwhelming.

Basically a long list of resources for clubs, contests, activities that are mostly independent groups/companies. I was hoping more for a list of activities that were not reliant on formal programs and more ideas that could be customized for individual students- not what this book is. I felt like this book would be more effective as a website with links and lots of updates. This book is aimed at teachers who are interested or have the responsibility of setting up programs for their students in school. It would be a good resource for a gifted program at a school.

The illustrations were pretty but nothing outstanding. The rhyming story would have been cute except for all the letter s were replaced by z and it was extremely distracting and hard to read. Also the font used music notes to replace p, b, d, and q which just added to the visual clutter. The cover of the book was appealing- they should have stuck to that more simplified visual style throughout the book.

This is a great book to help teachers teach (and learn for themselves) about the brain. I love the idea of using this topic to teach kids how they learn. One thing I found lacking were ideas of activities for actually using the scientific research to learn better... Each section had a 2 page reproducible worksheet, which is probably the least effect learning method for most people. There were a few activity ideas. But I've decided to use the book as a syllabus of sorts to guide me in developing lessons and activities to teach my kids. I read the section and then turn to pinterest and google to help me come up with multi-sensory learning activities about the topics. This is probably best because I can tailor my approach to best match the learning needs of my kids and no book could address all the different possible activities out there, though a few more examples of activities would have been nice. Overall I'm really excited about using this book with my kids for our next science unit.

DNF- It seemed like an entertaining book but there were too many swear words for me to continue reading. One reason I like reading MG fiction is for well-written books without swearing and sex so that's an automatic no for me.

This was a super silly book about a girl in a city who finds a pony and then proceeds to hide the horse in her apartment bedroom. My kids, who love horses, were really excited for me to read it aloud to them. They quickly became uncomfortable by all the rule breaking and lying and how she lets him eat donuts- they were very concerned for the safety of the pony. But they also loved the silly and disgusting parts, like what the MC does with the inevitable output of livestock living in an enclosed space. Altogether though, the uncomfortable parts ended up stopping me from finished reading this aloud to my children and they didn't complain.

I really liked this book about interest-based learning. It is set up like a textbook for training teachers. It gives case studies in each chapter and guides teachers through each step with lots of trouble shooting and examples and reasons. I especially liked the menus and surveys- for example there are lists of different subjects kids might be interested in and more specific topics of study in those areas that they could pursue, and then a list of different projects that work well with those different topics. Also there are lists of ways to present topics to children- rather than the broad topic of economics, for lower elementary you could say "starting a business" with a project of planning a lawn mowing business (my own idea, not from the book).

I liked this book so well that when a high school teacher friend of mine mentioned that she was starting project-based learning with her students this fall, I insisted she had to read this book and then reluctantly let her borrow it.

The title makes this book sound like it will be an instructional book. It is not. It is a dictionary of science terms with some illustrations. A nice little reference book but not really what I was expecting or something I would pay for to add to my library.

I'm reviewing this book as someone who has had 3 years of high school Chinese and 3 years of college Chinese, as well as living overseas in China and Taiwan and living in immersive environments. For me this book is excellent! It is a great way for me to practice reading in short bursts. Most of the Chinese I know is conversational and so I can learn and review the characters for words I am familiar speaking. However, this book is NOT for beginners.

Someone might learn to read a little Chinese with this book but they are not going to learn to correctly pronounce Chinese by reading this book. A huge part of remembering Chinese characters (for me at least) is understanding the meaning of the different parts of the characters since it is pictorial and not phonological. For instance, the character for person looks like a little stick figure. A lot of other characters incorporate that character (called a radical) and it helps understand the meaning of the word. But it rarely has anything to do with how the word is pronounced.

There was a minor but consistent typo throughout the digital file of the book I had... In the pinyin, every time an "a" was followed by an "o" with a third tone, the "a" and "o" were separated by a space making it look like the word was two separate words. Like "hao" looked like "ha o". Something that I can ignore being very familiar with the words affected, but for a new learner, they are going to get very mixed up by that.

I could see this book being used show more as a textbook in a beginning class with supplementary materials and lots and lots of interaction with someone who speaks Chinese. I could see this also being used with audio files, though I think it would be very difficult without specific auditory instruction in tones and pronunciation. show less

I read an ebook version and I think that made a difference. There are a lot of good true stories about girls and what they have done to make a difference in the world. I give three stars because nothing stood out to me and the stories were rather uneven and random feeling. A little intro before each story linking the stories together by theme would have made it a little more readable as an ebook. I might have enjoyed a physical book more since I would be able to pick it up and randomly flip to a story and read that little bit, then come back for more another time.

This is a good reference book with lots of ideas on how to allow student's to choose assessments in literature using menus. Menus in this case mean a list of activities to choose from. It says for "Advanced Level Menus for Grades 6-8" but I think the ideas are adaptable for younger and older students. There are lots of reproducibles that can be used with a large variety of ages and levels and a big section of examples, though I think they are just meant to be examples because the odds that they have the exact book with the exact activity your student wants to do is slim. But that's the point of this book because to provide every activity specifically for every book would be volumes and volumes. Instead you present your student with a few options, they pick what they want and you help them narrow down what the standards for completion will look like. There are also plenty of examples of scoring rubrics. All in all, a very handy reference book to add to my library. What would have made this an outstanding 5 stars would have been a link or cd of editable forms to make it easy to prepare and print. Or even perforated pages to make it easier to make copies of some of the forms. I have a feeling I'll probably end up cutting off the spine and sticking it in a binder or end up with a broken spine after a while.

(I received this book free from LibraryThing's early reviewers program. This review is my honest opinion.)

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, it is a book that covers depression and abuse in a way that is appropriate for middle grade readers. On the other hand, there was some swearing that I don't feel is appropriate for middle grader readers. Also it was really short, which is great for some readers who don't have the stamina for a longer book but it also felt like we were missing parts of the story as it jumped through the timeline pretty quickly. But maybe younger readers won't be bothered by it.
The message of the book is good: that we all have the freedom to make different choices than people who come before us and so let's make the best choices we can. There is also the message of being careful of judging others because we rarely know the whole story.
I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. It was very suspenseful and not too scary for kids. It was really interesting to read of an event that occurred so recently as a lot of these types of books are written about events that happened before the kids it's aimed at were born. I was not aware of the California Camp Fire before reading this book.
The book has lots of discussion points and would make a good read aloud, especially to talk about the choices the kids made and what the reader would have done in the same situation.

I'm not sure what to make of this book. It feels like I'm reading a play, a social commentary play, the kind I might have gone to seen in college as part of a sociology class. I was expecting more science, more sociology but this book is basically transcribed interviews with women about money. It's hard to read- especially since there is little to no commentary about who these women are or the context in which they are speaking. Some parts were really interesting but some were really annoying with swearing or other verbal fillers.

I am an absolute beginner to German, as in I know only what I've picked up from movies. I requested this book when I was expecting to go on an extended trip to Germany that has since fallen through. However I gave the book a try anyway. I have only read the first story but am reviewing based on that story since, as a beginner, this is going to take me at least a year to finish if I do it right. I read the author's directions to in how to read the stories and found it very helpful advice: first read the story and try to get the gist of it without worrying about understanding every word. Then read the vocabulary list at the end, reread the story, read the summary, and read the story again (or something to that effect). As someone who doesn't know German and is a true beginner, I think a brief introductory chapter of say, the top 100 most common German words, would have been extremely helpful. I was able to get a bare idea about the first story my first read through but as a beginner, it was too long for me. I think having the stories broken down into three smaller parts would have been helpful. Also it was hard to read as an ebook. A physical book would be easier to mark up and be able to flip easily between the vocabulary and the story during subsequent reads. I really have no clue about the literary quality of the book since I don't speak any German so I don't know if the stories are well written or accurate but otherwise, I think this is a helpful book to learn how to show more read German. Speaking is a whole other ballgame- I imagine that any German speaker would die laughing hearing me guess on the pronunciations as I read it. Offering an optional audio file for future purchasers would put this book up a star.
(I was given this ebook in exchange for my honest opinion.) show less

I am an absolute beginner to German, as in I know only what I've picked up from movies. I requested this book when I was expecting to go on an extended trip to Germany that has since fallen through. However I gave the book a try anyway. I have only read the first story but am reviewing based on that story since, as a beginner, this is going to take me at least a year to finish if I do it right. I read the author's directions to in how to read the stories and found it very helpful advice: first read the story and try to get the gist of it without worrying about understanding every word. Then read the vocabulary list at the end, reread the story, read the summary, and read the story again (or something to that effect). As someone who doesn't know German and is a true beginner, I think a brief introductory chapter of say, the top 100 most common German words, would have been extremely helpful. I was able to get a bare idea about the first story my first read through but as a beginner, it was too long for me. I think having the stories broken down into three smaller parts would have been helpful. Also it was hard to read as an ebook. A physical book would be easier to mark up and be able to flip easily between the vocabulary and the story during subsequent reads. I really have no clue about the literary quality of the book since I don't speak any German so I don't know if the stories are well written or accurate but otherwise, I think this is a helpful book to learn how to show more read German. Speaking is a whole other ballgame- I imagine that any German speaker would die laughing hearing me guess on the pronunciations as I read it. Offering an optional audio file for future purchasers would put this book up a star.
(I was given this ebook in exchange for my honest opinion.) show less

We received this book yesterday and all of my kids were immediately drawn to the bright cover. It got a thumbs up from them all (ages 10, 7, 5, and 2). It was a fun mix of science and art with a project that children can easily copy, though they will probably not get results as shown in the book (a rocket powered by an antacid tablet goes so high, it disappears.) One of my children was concerned over Dot's obsession with being the best but the main character Dot learns by the end of the book that there are many ways to be successful, not just being the fastest or going the farthest. Before reading this book, my family had never heard of the original book or watched the tv show so the final 3 pages that were written in quotes and ended with a sign off from a computer screen sounded strange.
I don't usually comment on the actual construction of the book but I was very impressed by the physical book. With four kids and as a former elementary teacher, I've gone through a lot of children's books. This paperback edition is very sturdy with thick pages that will not easily fall apart or rip. Very nice!

A cute and gentle read. I enjoyed the simple everyday mysteries faced by Mrs Stella Ryman. I also appreciated the lack of swearing, sex, and violence. It's a talented author that can make a book interesting without resorting to those. I haven't read the first in the series but it wasn't difficult to figure out who was who and get into the story.