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.

Review of How Much? Visiting Markets Around the World by Ted Lewin (HarperCollins, 2006).

How much for a rambutan, a durian, or a longan? How much for a llama wool poncho? What about that camel, or that basket of flowers?

Caldecott Honor artist Ted Lewin takes readers on a shopping excursion around the world in a series of deft watercolor sketches. In Thailand, we visit a floating market where shoppers may buy exotic fruits such as rambutan, longans, or the infamous durian (”Eating a durian is like eating vanilla custard in an outhouse.”), or they may stop at a fried-banana boat for a sweet treat. In India, we tour a floral market in the evening, as lamplight reveals smiling faces, bare feet treading over a thick carpet of discarded leaves and petals, and brilliant baskets of flowers. In Peru, a textile market filled with handwoven garments lines a narrow street bisected by a train track, and children dart about only a few feet from the train carrying people to Machu Picchu. In Egypt, we witness camel traders making a deal. And in more familiar territory, we visit a flea market in New Jersey, where people haggle over one another’s discards.

Though most of the settings are exotic and unfamiliar to Western readers, the familiar elements that all have in common are buying, selling, and trading. Children who understand that they can trade money for the things that they want will be fascinated by the kinds of things that other people around the world like to buy, and where they do their shopping.

Once I Ate a Pie by Patricial MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest, illustrated by Kathy Schneider

Meet Beefy, who once ate a pie. Lucy, who loves what’s hers — and everything is hers. Sugar, who only likes to sleep. Abby, who never steals, only borrows. Pocket, who cannot understand why his coat, dish, and collar are so tiny when he’s sure he’s huge.

It’s a dog’s world, as the saying goes, and the dogs of Once I Ate a Pie are here to explain the world from a dog’s point of view. Gus wants us to know that he needs to herd everyone and wants everyone in one place. That’s why he pokes his nose into the bathroom when people close the door. Puppy feels overwhelmed by the size of the world, and wants to be close to his people, safe and warm. Louis used to only yip, but now he can BARK, and he’s proud of it.

Everyone loves to be heard, and Newbery Medal winner Patricia MacLachlan and her daughter, Emily MacLachlan Charest open the world of thirteen household heroes who want us to know what’s on their minds. Guggenheim Fellowship winning illustrator Katy Schneider provides heartfelt, dog-view portraits, bringing the stars of the book to life.

This book would be an excellent addition to any family where dogs and small children share the same space. Once I Ate a Pie is a great way to help kids understand their canine companions, and should help open up conversations about “why does puppy do that?”

A Gift of Her Own by Wendy Pini, Father Tree Press, 1995.

What do you do when someone laughs at something that’s close to your heart, until you think your heart will break? Run away from home, into the forest, to live on wild berries for the rest of your life?

That is what young Elmy tries to do in A Gift of Her Own, a fantasy picture book from the creators of the Elfquest graphic novels. Illustrated with Wendy Pini’s achingly beautiful artwork, the story carries an important message for young children with creative souls.

Elmy is a poor child in an alternate world, the World of Two Moons. When she is mocked for a button necklace that she made for herself, she flees into the forest, vowing never to return. There she meets some mysterious people — the wolfriding elves that she believed were only legend. The gentle treeshaper, Redlance, takes her deep into the elfin holt, where she meets two youngsters, Ember and Suntop. Elmy soon finds the values of her human world turned around, for the elves trade furs and meat with the trolls for gold and jewels that they view as mere decoration, while Elmy’s handmade necklace is treated with respect. “Elmy made that!” Ember says, holding back the greedy troll child, Trinket, who makes a grab for the necklace. “It’s special!”

“You are a Maker,” Redlance tells her. “With such a gift, you’ll never want for anything. Someone will always have a use for what you can do. There aren’t many Makers, after all.”

In the 1980’s, Wendy and Richard Pini published the first of their fantasy graphic novels that becaome the Elfquest series. “Fantasy with teeth,” they called it, for the Wolfriders weren’t the sort of elves to just drift around the forest looking ethereal. The ancestors of the wolfriders were forced to live in a savage world, and adapted by becoming creatures of the night, bonding with wolves and learning to hunt as the wolves do. The novels live on, supported by a fan base playing out their out their own Wolfrider fantasies in online holts all across the Internet. While the original Elfquest novels deal with adult subjects, A Gift of Her Own brings the world of the Wolfriders to children in this gentle and lovely picture book.