BERTIE: JUST LIKE DADDY written and illustrated by Marcus Pfister

Target Age – Pre-nursery and Gan

Bertie and his daddy are a happy hippo family. Daddy Hippo has all the right answers to Bertie’s requests to be just like him. For example, Daddy knows what to say when Bertie wants to read the newspaper. “You’ll learn to read when you’re bigger. Right now you’re just the right size for a paper hat.” Both Bertie and his dad smile. There are lots of “just right” moments along the way in this charming tale.

This is a beautifully illustrated storybook full of whimsical hippos cast in vivid colors and uncluttered settings. Your little ones will love this one. Get ready to read aloud …again and again.

MY ONE HUNDRED ADVENTURES by Polly Horvath

Target Age – Grades 5-7

At the center of this story is 12 year old Jane Fielding, a beguiling, naïve youngster who longs to be more grown-up. The problem is that she doesn’t understand the grown-ups who people her life. At the heart of this story is how she learns, in ways both painful and enriching, whom to trust and about whom to be very wary.

Jane, her mother, and three younger siblings live in a ramshackle cottage by the sea. The ebb and flow of the tides and the colors and sounds of their private, desolate beach become a metaphor for Jane’s changing perceptions of her small community.

Jane is ready to understand the world in new ways; she’s on the brink of adolescence and dying for what she calls adventures. She is hoodwinked by a Bible toting preacher and a harried mother of five difficult little children into doing all sorts of crazy chores. These are just two of the bizarre characters she encounters.

By the end of the story Jane is ready to accept her changing self with her foibles and mistakes. She’s growing up.

For youngsters who enjoy reading about whacky yet endearing characters, this is a splendid book.

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS – retold from the Jonathan Swift original by Martin Woodside. Illustrated by James Akib.

Target Age – Grades 6-9

One of the CLASSIC STARTS series of wonderful stories for young readers.

This is a fine retelling of Swift’s amazing, sardonic, satirical tale of the foibles and follies of the human race. So much of Swift’s bitter humor, as he cleverly jabs at our sense of self, is masterfully captured by Martin Woodside. He has managed to both simplify Swift’s language and at the same time not lose his cadence and use of nuance.

Young readers will be captivated by the tiny Lilliputians and the gigantic Laputans that Gulliver encounters in his travels. As his bizarre adventures culminate in his stay in the country of the Houyhnhnms, clever readers should be ready to say, “Wow! I get it! We are the Yahoos on our worst days and even when we think we aren’t so bad!”

Isn’t satire great!!

Take a look at the other fine texts in this series. I suspect they are as skillfully presented as this one. This series is a winner.

THE THIEF by Megan Whalen Turner – A Newberry Honor Book

Target Age – Grades 6-8

Gen, the young hero of this exciting tale of adventure and intrigue, has secrets of his own. We first meet him in the dank and dark prison cell to which he has been consigned. He’s a master thief who foolishly has bragged about his prowess. The king’s scholar rescues him from his dismal fate and recruits him for a daring mission to steal Hephestia’s treasure.

Yes, this story is a remarkable blend of Greek mythology, which the author cheerfully admits borrowing and adapting to her needs. It’s also a leap in time to an era after Gutenberg reshaped our world. Somehow, this all works to create a thrilling journey, through massive groves of olive trees and steep mountain trails, which brings Gen and his companions face to face with their greatest challenges.

This is a wonderful read for kids who are intrigued by myths and would love to explore hidden caves and ominous mazes, all surrounded by a roaring river that ebbs and flows at very short notice.

SAVVY by Ingrid Law

Target Age – Junior High School

Don’t we all like to think that we are savvy about something, at least once in awhile? Well, the Beaumont kids actually get their savvy on the very day of their thirteenth birthday. How about that? It makes sense that our sensibilities, our capacities for being savvy, are heightened, if not easily confused, with the onset of the teenage years, right?

These kids are especially loving, whacky, mixed-up, super sensitive and savvy all at the same time. Young readers will love the Beaumont family for these very reasons.

Mibs, who has just gotten her savvy, leads her siblings along with their preacher’s son and daughter, on a wild bus trip for all the best reasons: to visit the Beaumont’s Poppa who lies very ill in the hospital miles away. Before their voyage is over, everything goes wrong until it turns out as right as it can. Young readers will appreciate the real way the story ends.

This novel’s warm-heartedness will spill out and over to young readers who are pulled into the hearts and misadventures of the characters. Their voices ring true and honest as each of them learns how important being savvy helps as you grow up.

This novel makes a great book review choice as well as a text for small reading groups to share.

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT – a memoir by Diana Welch and Liz Welch with Amanda Welch and Dan Welch

Target Age – Mature High Schoolers

This is a wrenching memoir written as adults by four siblings who lost both father and mother within a few years before any of them were grown-up. Their father dies first in a mysterious car accident. Soon afterwards their mother is diagnosed with cancer. Amanda, the eldest, is nineteen when their mother dies and Diana, the youngest, is a child of four.

It is only as adults that they are able and willing to confront this terrible period of their lives and reflect individually on its different meanings.

Each reader will surely be drawn viscerally into these stories; the voices of their narrators ring and break with their honesty and candor. For me, it was the heart-breaking memories of Diana, who at the tender age of seven, a bereft child, is taken in by the Chamberlains. In a moment of generosity and concern, they offer to make her part of their family. What a poor fit for all of them. Her loneliness is palpable as she misses both her parents and her siblings.

If there is a sensitive youngster in your home who is ready to explore the dimensions of the human heart, this is the book for her or him to read.

"SID THE SCIENCE KID – EVERYBODY MOVE YOUR FEET! By Jim Henson

Stage 1 of the Let’s Read and Find Out Science series

Target Age - Gan

This is a wonderful read-aloud book to the little ones in your life. It’s all about how important it is to exercise. Take a bunch of cute preschoolers and their energetic and creative teacher and the gang is ready to investigate, explore, and discover all the great benefits of being fit. Teacher Susie helps the kids find their pulse and learn why it beats faster during fun, active times. Later they draw pictures of their favorite activities such as dancing, playing soccer and gardening.

Since this series is based on the TV show, many youngsters will be familiar with the perky characters and the bright, colorful backgrounds. These books make “let’s read and find-out” a fun and exciting way to learn.

Big Nate – In a Class by Himself by Lincoln Peirce

Target Age: Grades 5 - 7

This is a very funny book. I just love Big Nate, the quintessential good natured sixth grade bumbler, whose misadventures are affectionately told and illustrated by the author. Peirce’s illustrations are hilarious comic book frames that are the perfect foil for the text.

All Nate really wants is recognition and a bit of respect from his classmates and teachers. Every plan he dreams up, whether supported by his two buddies or not, manages to backfire in ways that readers will surely understand and find amusing. In fact, kids will readily laugh along with Nate, but never at him, which makes this an especially endearing book for young readers.

Moms, dads, grandparents and other relatives, buy this fun book for your favorite youngster. He’ll just love it.

I SURVIVED THE SHARK ATTACKS OF 1916 by Lauren Tarshis

Illustrated by Scott Dawson

This is a Scholastic Book series of two survival stories.

Target Age – Grades 5 - 7

Imagine a little kid coming face to face with a deadly shark in his village swimming creek! Well, that’s exactly what happened more than once back in 1916 in New Jersey waters. This true to life fast-paced story is sure to keep young readers glued to its pages right to the very end.

I like the style of this book. Tarshis has taken the names and places right from the headlines of the time and woven them into a convincing version of how they may have actually happened. At the end of the story she supplies her young readers with specific information about these attacks and about the behaviors of sharks. Kids will feel compelled to learn more about sharks after reading this story.

These survival texts would work very well as part of a science or history unit as well as a great read in the English class.

CORALINE by Neil Gaiman

The graphic novel adaptation of the magical national bestseller

Adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell

Target Age – Grades 5 - 8

I simply loved this graphic novel, which is the coming of age story of Coraline, a young girl on the far edge of childhood. Her tumultuous tumble into her more grown-up self is at the heart of this book.

Coraline who is bored with her everyday life, annoyed at her hard working parents who don’t have enough time for her and confused by the eccentricities of her neighbors is like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Coraline, too, tumbles into a strange new world populated by her very own neighbors cleverly disguised and more exotic. And, yes, there is a wicked witch of sorts in both stories that challenge the girls to use all their powers of imagination and courage to bring them to their dramatic end. All those kids who were enchanted by Dorothy’s adventures will love Coraline’s.

What I especially like in Coraline’s story is the way in which the illustrations jump to life at each turning point in her adventure. This book is no comic book of quick, line drawings, but rather each frame is meticulously and beautifully crafted and graphically captures Coraline’s powerful changing moods and feelings. In addition, the text sets just the right tone with its rich vocabulary and tense pace from beginning to end.

This is a first-rate graphic novel that belongs on a youngster’s personal book shelf and as part of a literature curriculum. It combines the best of both worlds – fine writing and amazing graphics. Both reluctant readers and those who already love a good book will be captivated by Coraline.

WHO WAS CLAUDE MONET? By Ann Waldron

Illustrated by Stephen Marchesi

One of a vast series of illustrated biographies of famous people.

Target Age – Grades 6 - 9

This is a wonderful book full of intriguing stories of the many difficulties and tough decisions faced by this famous Impressionist painter, as he remains determined to continue to paint in his unique and often misunderstood new art form. The reader learns about his creative process along with fascinating stories of his growing family. We watch Monet at work and as a devoted husband and father. His life as an artist includes long friendships with Renoir and other contemporaries. Finally when he is able to save enough money he buys a home in Giverny. I found these descriptive chapters appealing as I learned about his love of gardening especially the planting and nurturing of lilies.

The illustrations are all black and white, pen and ink drawings. They suit the text and yet beg the reader to grab some paints or crayons and fill them with the lush colors reminiscent of Monet’s paintings. That works for me.

Children who love art will love this book.

WOLF BROTHER – by Michelle Paver

Book One of Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

Target Age – grades 7-9

This is a fabulous book! Wow! It’s impossible to put down this story of the daring Ice Age adventures of twelve year old Torak and his constant and devoted wolf cub companion. Torak’s daring exploits unfold in the forest just at the perimeter of a giant glacier, a huge mountain of sheer ice.

Paver has amazing control of her narrative as she skillfully combines the primitive fears and superstitions of these ancient wanderers with their bravery and bravado as they face their unknown and threatening world. There is a hair-raising adventure at nearly every turn as young Torak, his friend Renn and wolf cub meet the challenge of unwitting the giant demon bear that threatens all the clans who camp at the base of the mountain.

I especially like how Paver, who did careful research for this novel by traveling through the forests of northern Finland and Lapland, who slept on reindeer skins and peered into the mouth of a very large brown bear, brings a powerful, immediate sense to this exciting story. She makes the reader feel that she is there freezing right along with Torak as he plunges into an ice hole or is terrified with him as he looks up into the red eyes of the demon bear.

This is a sure fire winner for all kids who love adventure. And, teachers and parents, your youngsters will be learning so much about primitive medicine, clan life, and defenses against the impenetrable Ice Age, in the best way possible by reading a totally engaging book.

THE CABINET OF WONDERS by Marie Rutkoski

The Kronos Chronicles: Book 1

Target Age – Middle School

This is a hodge-podge of fantasy, science, history and geography that works to engage the reader in the adventures of Petra, a very brave and resourceful youngster, who travels to the king’s palace in Prague from her little country village. She journeys so far from home to retrieve her father’s eyes stolen by the prince of the realm. What these eyes saw and created for the prince and his city concerns a unique clock in the town square. Combine all this with the whimsical presence of Petra’s constant companion, Astrophil, a talking tin spider invented by her father, and the adventure begins.

This is a fine book review choice for readers who love adventure and science wrapped around with an intriguing string of fantasy.

TWISTED by Laurie Halse Anderson

Target Age – High School

Laurie Halse Anderson has written marvelous historical fiction, carefully researched and full of authentic details and adventures, like FEVER 1793 for Middle School readers and CHAINS for high school students. In TWISTED she turns her imagination to fiction; this is the grim, realistic story of one young man’s struggle to understand himself and his dysfunctional family.

Tyler, who has spent the summer doing imposed community service as punishment for an act of drastic mischief, returns to school in the best physical shape he’s ever been and just as troubled about the palpable, pervasive unhappiness in his home. It is in this mode that he begins his senior year of high school.

To complicate matters he becomes infatuated with possibly the most popular girl in the Senior class whose father happens to be Tyler’s dad’s boss. Tyler’s frustrations and his raging hormones, graphically described along the way, lead him down dangerous paths that are sure to collide in unexpected and truthful ways.

This is a “no holds barred” coming of age story about a troubled yet very decent fellow, who learns how to “know better” as he faces the crises in his life.

This novel is a wonderful book review choice for mature high school readers.

PAPER TOWNS by John Green

Target Age – High School

High school students will love this book because it talks to their very real anxieties about who they are and the pervasive angst that accompanies such adolescent inquiries. The central character, Quentin, called Q by his buddies, has been infatuated by his next door neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman for as long as he can remember. She is almost unapproachable, or so he thinks, until one evening when she entices him to break every rule in his book of manners and morals. Of course, he does it. As a result he begins to seriously question his assumptions about her. When Margo disappears from home, this leads him and several of his good friends on a mad chase to discover where she is hiding.

Okay. So this book has your typical scenes of high school life in and out of school. That’s true, but underneath these moments particularly after Q and his friends set out on their journey, this journey takes on metaphorical layers which ring true about how little we really understand each other and how fragile each of us really is.

This is a wonderful book to recommend for that next book review or as a special gift to a high school junior or senior that you know.

SOLD by Patricia McCormick

This book is a National Book Award Finalist

Target Age – mature high school readers

This is a soulful, heart-breaking narrative about Lakshmi from Nepal who at age thirteen is sold into slavery, torn from her unsuspecting mother’s arms, and transported to the red- light District of Calcutta, India. It is through her anguished voice that we hear her cruel story of a childhood robbed of innocence and protection.

This novel was published in 2008 and the setting is a modern day, impoverished village high in the Himalayan Mountains and in the back alleys of contemporary Calcutta. McCormick visited the village of Goldhunga in the Himalayas, the Apne Aan women’s center in Calcutta, and the Deepika Social Welfare Center for Women and Children in the red-light district of Calcutta before writing this book. Her text rings authentic and truthful in its graphic descriptions of Lakshmi’s life in the brothel and of her tormented longings to be free.

This is a must read for sensitive, mature high school students.

MARTHA DOESN’T SAY SORRY! By Samantha Berger

Illustrated by Bruce Whatley

Target Age - Gan

Martha, an adorable little girl, just doesn’t want to say “sorry” when she annoys her family. After she thinks it over, she is convinced that saying “I’m sorry” makes her feel so much better.

This whimsical story along with lively, pastel illustrations that fill each page make Martha and her family jump to life for any youngster. Enjoy reading this lovely book to the young children in your family.

THE BEST TEACHER IN SECOND GRADE by Katherine Kenah

Illustrations by Abby Carter

This is part of the I CAN READ! Program Level 2 series.

Target Age: grades 1 -3

Any second grader would love to have the charismatic, understanding Mr. Hopper as her teacher especially if she, like Luna, enters his class in the middle of the year. When the class has to change their Family Night show at the last minute, Luna’s bright idea saves the day for her classmates and convinces her that Mr. Hopper is indeed the best teacher ever. I think young readers will agree.

This is a fun book for children eager to read on their own.

MELONHEAD by Kitty Kelly

Illustrated by Gillian Johnson

Target Age – Middle School Readers

This is a wacky story about the misadventures of a dare devil 10 year old boy. Any young reader with a touch of mischief will chortle aloud as he reads these clever, merry escapades. Adam Melon affectionately called Melonhead and his quirky young neighbors, who, by the way, live in Washington, DC, my old stomping grounds, haven’t got a mean bone among them; yet, they manage with all the best intentions to cause mayhem at every turn. Melonhead’s parents are long-suffering and so very understanding that youngsters will silently wish their own folks could be as whimsical in the face of their silly seasons.

Great news for all kids and their families – there are many other Melonhead adventures and several books featuring spunky Lucy Rose, his neighbor and friend. Put these books on top of your gift list.

THE CASTLE CORONA by Sharon Creech

Illuminated by David Diaz

Target Age - Middle School readers

David Diaz, Caldecott Medal winner, has illustrated this lovely fairy tale with absolutely captivating full-color images. Young readers, especially girls, will be magically transported to the mythical kingdom of Corona with every page they turn. His pictures alone make this book a keepsake.

Creech’s wonderful voice full of mystery and enchantment beckons her young readers to believe in the possibility that the rich can learn to understand the plight of the poor and become better human beings, and, in the case of the royal family, benevolent rulers. Sounds like a great idea to me!

Girls will love to read this book for their next book report.

JEREMY FINK AND THE MEANING OF LIFE by Wendy Mass

Target Age - Junior high school readers

This is a beautifully crafted coming of age story about almost thirteen year old Jeremy Fink who is struggling to come to terms with the death of his father and his own emerging adolescence. Along with his pal Lizzy they search for the meaning of life, a challenge from his father who left him an intriguing box, in which the answer can be found, only to be opened on his 13th birthday. I loved how the answer to this impossible question is resolved by the end of the story. I think young readers will be enthralled by both the search and the resolution.

This is a special book for the reader to enjoy all by herself. Teachers, if your students want to use this book as a book review selection, encourage them to reflect in their own way about the answer Jeremy discovers and whether it has meaning in their own life. This lies at the heart of this fine novel.

THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

(The first novel in The Hunger Games trilogy)

Target Age – high school readers

This is an intriguing novel on several levels. It fits cleverly into the survival story genre since it chronicles the struggles of teenagers to outwit each other in a treacherous game of survival. On top of that, there is a dramatic love story or two that will grab adolescent readers. On a deeper level it belongs with stories like “The Most Dangerous Game”, “The Lottery” and Lord of the Flies because it challenges our assumptions about how deep our true civility towards one another is ingrained. Most profoundly it demands that the reader hold up to her own moral standards the behavior of the rulers of this cruel country, adults who are willing to yearly offer up their youngsters as penance for their own past crimes. Grappling with these issues makes this book a strong selection for small reading groups.

HATE LIST by Jennifer Brown

Target Age - high school readers

I suppose this novel was bound to be written anytime soon. It chronicles the aftermath of a murderous rampage in a public high school when an enraged senior randomly kills many of his classmates and then turns his gun on himself. It is on the surviving students particularly his girlfriend Valerie that Jennifer Brown focuses her attention in this engrossing novel. Valerie struggles with her enormous guilt and fear that she has been a part of Nick’s uncontrollable violence. Each of the students and the faculty stumble, fall, and transform as they face their own frailities and fears in the months until graduation.

There are moments in Valerie’s tormented life that ring true especially as she unburdens herself to a most caring and competent therapist. In places in the text Brown’s hold on the other characters seems less sure. Nevertheless, this novel opens up the possibilities for important small group discussions on the effects of violence on a community.