The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett, illustrated by Brett Helquist (Scholastic Press, 2006)

In Blue Balliett’s sequel to the fantasy mystery Chasing Vermeer, Calder Pillay’s old friend Tommy Segovia returns to Chicago’s University School one week before the end of the school year. But everything has changed for Tommy. He no longer lives across the street from Calder, but instead lives in an apartment overlooking Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Robie house, several blocks away. And Calder went and made friends with a girl Tommy hardly knows, one Petra Andalee. Tommy longs to do something that will create a big splash so that he can feel important. When the class learns that the Robie house has been slated for demolition, and the class makes a decision to save it, Tommy searches for a chance to find an important clue. But Calder’s insistence that he make friends with Petra creates rifts among all three, and they set out, like points of a triangle, in three directions, chasing down clues about fish, dragons, and the Invisible Man, all to save the Robie house from demolition — and from thieves.

As in Chasing Vermeer, The Wright 3 weaves together solid clues and fantastic events into one satisfying mystery, but the fantasy elements are even more evident: a mysterious cloaked man who tosses a copy of The Invisible Man from a train, an identical copy to the one Petra picked up at a bookstore; a jade fish that Tommy finds that may be the very fish Frank Lloyd Wright carried as a talisman; and the Robie house itself, that shrugs villains off of its roof and speaks in whispers to its friends.

Brett Helquist’s charming illustrations weave a story of their own. Readers should search them for signs of an animal that is important in the story, and watch for its transformation at the end.

Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, illustrated by Brett Helquist (Scholastic Press, 2004).

If you like your mysteries with a touch of fantasy, then Chasing Vermeer is for you. When a well-known Vermeer painting goes missing, sixth graders Calder Pillay and Petra Andalee decide to track it down. First working alone as rivals, the two must join forces to make sense of patterns, coincidence, and the significance of blue M&Ms to unravel the mystery before the thief makes good on his promise to destroy the priceless painting.

Author Blue Balliett fills her fantasy mystery with delightful quirks of place and character. Her two youthful detectives live in Hyde Park in Chicago, where they attend the University School, founded by John Dewey and running on very student-centered principles. Petra and Calder’s teacher, Miss Hussey, seems youthful and scatterbrained, but holds a mystery or two herself — as does the elderly Mrs. Sharp that the children befriend. Calder carries around a set of pentominoes, a twelve-piece set of mathematical tools used to explore geometry, and which Calder uses to explore patterns related to the mystery. Petra has a penchant for writing and uses writing to clarify her ideas. But she also seems to have a hidden talent for “hearing” people who aren’t there — including the woman in the Vermeer painting.

Brett Helquist’s illustrations portray the characters perfectly, and hide an additional mystery: within the illustrations, readers can hunt for hidden pentominoes that spell out a secret message.

Mummies: The Newest, Coolest, & Creepiest from Around the World by Shelly Tanaka (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2005)

What is it about mummies that is so fascinating? Is it coming literally face-to-face with someone from the distant past? Is it the extraordinary amount of information a mummy reveals about the culture it came from? Or is it just that mummies are creepy, and we all love a shiver?

Shelly Tanaka takes the reader on an around-the-world journey to look at some of the most famous — and infamous — mummies that have been unearthed. Unlike other books that focus on Egypt, Tanaka begins in the Americas, home to the oldest mummies known. There, bodies might simply be dried in desert sands, or elaborately prepared by dismemberment, drying, and reassembly into clay-covered puppet-like figures. There are mummies that are probably sacrifices to Inca gods, to a body accidentally frozen over 500 years ago in a glacier in British Columbia.

The tale turns to Egypt, home of the most famous mummies, and tells about a modern Egyptian mummy, made by researchers from a donated body to study how Ancient Egyptians preserved their dead. The mystery of young Tutankhamen’s death (illness? accident? or murder?) is explored. A trip northward to Europ takes us into the land of the bog bodies, where people who were either sacrificed or executed (no one knows for sure) were tossed into the bogs, where strong tannic acids preserved them. After a look at the Iceman, found in Italy, and some puzzling mummies in Ireland, the tale moves to Asia, where tall, Caucasian-looking bodies were mummified in northern China. No one knows who these people were, nor how they got there. Nomads, perhaps?

Finally, the book goes where many mummy books never tread: modern mummies. There is the bizzare practice of self-mummification by Buddhist monks in the Himalayan mountains. There are cadavers preserved by plastination, partically-dissected and used in a modern educational museum show (ew! ew! ew!). There are the bodies of Eva Peron, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong, preserved with chemicals, and placed on display.

This book is a must for any young mummy fan who is interested in more unusual mummies. It is illustrated throughout by colorful photographs, some of which are not for the faint of heart!

The Day the Dinosaurs Died by Charlotte Lewis Brown, illustrated by Phil Wilson (HarperCollins, 2006)

When a giant fireball streaks down from the sky and smashes into the earth, even the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex is no match for its explosive power. Pteranodons go hurtling through the air, scorched by the explosion. Fire and flood down a Triceratops herd, and those dinosaurs that escape the destruction find themselves without food.

In this fictionalized account, based on actual fossils, Charlotte Lewis Brown tells a dramatic story of the extraordinary day in which an asteroid crashed into the earth. While it’s probable that dinosaurs were already in decline at the time, and that some may have survived the catastrophe but were out-competed by other species, the author chooses to focus on the brief moment in time when something close to 70% of species on earth, including most of the dinosaurs, may have been wiped out by a sudden global catastrophe. While there are alternative hypotheses to explain the K-T boundary (fossil traces in rocks that show a sudden global change, and that bear traces of soot and tell-tale chemicals), the most widely accepted one at present is the asteroid hypothesis.

This level 2 easy-to-read book could be just the thing for reluctant readers who need a gripping tale to keep them engaged. Dinosaurs have wide appeal for children, and this book has the added action-movie appeal of fire and explosions.

The book could also be a great tool for discussing scientific evidence. Why do paleontologists think that an asteroid struck the earth 60 million years ago? What do they use as evidence? How do they build scientfic theories (evidence-based explanations for natural phenomena) from data?

Mittens by Lola M. Schaefer, illustrated by Susan Kathleen Hartung (HarperCollins, 2006)

When a tiny kitten comes to a new house, everthing seems loud, unfamiliar, and scary. Mittens wants a place that’s just his, where he feels safe. But where? And will he find someone to be his friend?

This simple, satisfying tale is told in easy-to-read language with only a few lines on each page, perfect for children who are just learning to read on their own. The softly-colored illustrations add a sweet gentleness to the tale of how a young boy in the house helps Mittens feel safe. This book would be great for children to read just before a new kitten comes to their home, so that they can understand kitty’s nervousness and how they can help their new companion fit in.

Captain Barnacle’s Aquarium by Edward Miller (HarperCollins, 2006)

Yo, ho, ho! The old pirate, Captain Barnacle and his trusty  parrot are ready to take a class on a tour of his famous aquarium. The salty old sea dog has tales to tell of his days at sea, fighting other pirates, battling storms, and searching for treasure. From sailing through shark-infested waters, to getting clues from dophins, to treasure hunts and fights wtih giant sea squids, Captain Barnacle’s adventures hold the class entranced.

But throughout the pages are lots informative bits of sea lore about the fish and other sea creatures that Captain Barnacle encounters. Readers can read the tale straight through, then go back and read the information, or take in all the information on each page at once.

For young children, Captain Barnacle is a good introduction into studies of sea life, though parents and teachers will want to explain where fact ends and fantasy begins, lest children think that their first visit to an aquarium will bring them face-to-face with a pirate. Classrooms and homeschool kids could take a tip from the format of the book and create their own “aquarium” with sea facts and drawings of sea life.

United No More: Stories of the Civil War by Doreen Rappaport and Joan Verniero (HarperCollins, 2006)

Men, women, children, black, white, Native American — all took part in the American Civil War on both sides. What was it like for them? What led them to serve their cause, to fight in battles and to rouse others to do the same? What was the U.S. like in the 1860’s, when the Civil War erupted and split one country into two?

These questions and more are explored in this collection of fictionalized accounts of real people during the Civil War, bringing history alive to young readers. Appropriate for readers at the middle school level and above, these stories encompass many different groups who participated in the war between the states. Stories feature:

• Julia Ward Howe, writer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic
• Eugenia Phillips, arrested as a Confederate spy
• Mary Jackson, who led a protest against food shortages and rising prices in Richmond, Virginia
• William H. Carney, who served in the Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry
• Commander David Glasgow Farragut, who led the Union naval attack on Mobile, Alabama, and is reputed to have said, “Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!”
• President Abraham Lincoln during his second inaugural address, and Washington correspondent Noah Brooks who recorded and printed the famous “With malice toward none” speech.
• Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, once allies in the Mexican war, leading opposing armies in the Civil War, who faced one another across a table in house at Appomattox Virgina to negotiate the war’s end.

Readings from United No More would make a valuable addition to U.S. history lessons, bringing dry textbook facts to life, and giving a human face to important events.

Great World War II Projects You Can Build Yourself by Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt (Nomad Press, 2006).

There’s been a lot of feel-good nostalgia about the Second World War in the media. This book, however, isn’t just another “wasn’t that a great war?” entry into the general collection. Great World War II Projects You Can Build Yourself is an introduction to the World War II era that includes the good, the bad, and the really, really ugly, from daily sacrifices in support of the troops, to blatant raw racism seen in everyday art and propaganda.

No doubt that World War II was a defining period in the world’s history, a period that brought the United States forward as a leading world power. Yet the uncertainty of the era and the underlying fear that infused daily life is present in this series of hands-on history lessons.

An introductory chapter gives a brief history of the war itself, from conditions in Germany that led to Hitler’s rise to power, through Japan’s raid on Pearl Harbor that drew the U.S. into the war, and finally Hitler’s demise in a bunker in Berlin. Included are the persecution of Jews and other groups in Germany, and the internment of Japanese-Americans in the U.S. This sets the context for the chapters that follow.

The rest of the book focuses on life on the home front, where civillans were encouraged to “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” Food rationing became a way of life. People grew food in backyard victory gardens, and recipe books instructing homemakers on cooking without rationed foods, such as sugar and butter, appeared on shelves in every kitchen. Readers can try out a sugarless cake sweetened with honey and raisins instead of sugar, and grow a miniature victory garden.

Fear was also a theme on the homefront. Readers learn about propaganda, used both to raise morale and to direct anger and hatred against the enemy. Projects include building a model bomb shelter, models planes (which were used to train aircraft spotters), and victory banners. But just as kids avidly learned how to send coded messages from radio programs or Scouts, dreaming of one day intercept a secret message and catch a spy, readers can learn how to send secret messages, use codes, and learn some words used by Navajo code talkers

All projects in the book use common household items or items that can be easily found at a craft store. Elementary and middle school teachers as well as homeschoolers will find this book valuable for integrating history, art, and language arts in a World War II unit. Young readers interested in history and crafts will find plenty in this book to keep them busy during their leisure hours — just as their World War II era counterparts kept busy with homemade entertainments and crafts.

How to Be, written and illustrated by by Lisa Brown (HarperCollins, 2006)

How to be a monkey: Swing from a tree. Eat with your toes. Copy someone. Be curious.

How to be a bear: Catch fish with your hands. Hibernate. Growl. Be brave.

Author/illustrator Lisa Brown employs simple, charming illustrations and a minimal text to teach children how to be different animals — the how to be themselves, using the best qualities of the animals. The easy-to-read text make this book terrific for interactive storytime. Kids may want to act along with the children in the book, pretending to be different animals.

The book may also inspire conversation about what it means to be a person, and what it means to be yourself. The text could easily introduce the good qualities that people strive for: bravery, curiosity, patience, creativity, charm, and frendliness, without being pedantic or preachy.

How to Be is Lisa Brown’s debut book for children, and may be destined to become a beloved classic.

Lies and Other Tall Tales, complies by Zora Neale Hurston, adapted and illustrated by Christopher Myers (HarperCollins, 2005)

“Liars, back in the day, could tell a lie so good,

You didn’t even want to know the truth.”

The late Zora Neale Hurston (author of Their Eyes Were Watching God), throughout her anthropological studies of the southern U.S., collected tall tale after tall tale, each one more deliciously far-fetched than the next. But then:

“…she knew that there had been a decline

In the quality of lies and it was just

Gone get worse, unless somebody did something.

So she wrote down all the lies she could get her hands on.”

Illustrator Christopher Myers went the next step with Hurston’s collections, creating a book full of whoppers, illustrated with Myers’ cut cloth and paper art. Meet a man who ran so fast, he lost his feet. Or the woman so small, she could walk between the raindrops and never get wet. And then there was the year it was so dry — or the year it was so cold — well, you wouldn’t believe it until you read it, and even then, maybe you won’t believe it, but you’ll want to!

Lies and Other Tall Tales is a tribute to the fast-dying art of tall tales and outrageous whoppers straight from the furthest reaches of the imagination, “back when computers ran on steam power, back when cellular phones had rotary dials.” The rhythmic text echoes the voices of the original speakers as they sat of an evening, trying to outdo one another with one whopper after another. Small children may need some introduction into the text, lest they take the tall tales too literally, but young readers will enjoy the zestful exaggerations and wild fancies, and may try to come up with their own whoppers to match.