I liked the bright contrast in the pictures, but the plot seemed a little bit political to me. And the townsfolk lie to the boy then they boy kind-of blackmails them....sort of...

This is a PAW Patrol story. It's cute. Rubble hears noises and checks it out, but then he sees a ghost. They patrol tries to set a trap but that get's messed up and they finally all see the ghost. (I won't spoil it.)

A beautiful book about a mother and young son (and their kitten) going into Nana's attic to go through Nana's things because Nana has died. I love how Nana says "So, we'll make sure to keep her in our stories." and Xavier says, "Do stories hide in boxes?" The Green Baby Swing is a swaddle baby carrier and Xavier uses it for the kitten. They share it in the end. Just a warm hearted feeling when you are done reading.

A book about Spring! Squirrel is adorable and bird is the ever rational voice. Squirrel brings up all kinds of questions about the one little flower and calls it his flower. His attempts to protect the flower end up harming the flower so he learns that you can't protect it and that it's really not his flower. It's a wildflower for all to enjoy. The book has discussion points in the end matter.

It's a book about accepting yourself no matter what you look like. It starts out with a cute baby with big dreams, but soon, the children at school begin to tease her about her size. She grows bigger on the outside but seems to shrink into herself. But then she has enough and she makes room for her bigness. She gives all the bad words back to the people who said them saying, "These are yours, they hurt me." A few people try to make excuses and someone tries to change her one more time, but she's finally accepted who she is.

This is a good story for showing kids what a therapy dog is. It's also a "feel good" story where the puppy finds a new home that has lots of love.

I read the story, then I read the story behind the story, and both were heartwarming. The book is about a boy who has lost his father. The boy doesn't want to go to their special place in the woods, but a letter from his dad about a treasure and other events convince him to go. He finds that peace is the treasure and acceptance of loss.

Part of an educational series: ECSELent Adventures. This book deals with loss. The kids are proud of how responsible they are and are allowed to get a pet fish. But after spending fun times with the fish, they wake up one day and the fish is dead. It's sad but the characters are allowed to cry and be sad. I like how they equate death with a body that has stopped working forever so their are no religious biases.

It's a lovely book about new friends that team up as a "sisterhood" they build a club, do lots of fun things and uplift the town with their individual talents. They also discover that the strange scary lady is not so strange and scary.

A little girls shows you around her house. She never sees the ghosts, but the readers will. The book has velum pages with the ghosts that you can see only when you turn the page. Clever and cute. Kids will love seeing the ghosts.

An Alabama Author also called "Father Goose" The poetry is lovely, the illustrations are earth tones. The book explores a time when there were not cars, buildings, and people, then shows all those things but that you can still go out to a grassy area in a city and be outside, enjoy nature.

This is an adorable book. The illustrations are touched up photographs of Andy's sculptures. The trees, the characters, the other backdrops are all made of clay. Wolfboy (an adorable blue monster) is hungry and searching for the rabbits. The rabbits are just out of reach(site). Finally, Wolfboy catches them and we discover that Wolfboy wants the rabbits, not to eat, but to get the moonberry pies that the rabbits make for him.

It's a rhyming book, but I think that takes away from the story. The kids babysitter for the night is a pirate who fixes pirate stew. The book goes through all the piratey things that need to go into it. The kids don't eat it. But they do eat the doughnuts when the ship sails into town to the doughnut shop. When mom and dad come home, they are hungry, they see the stew and take a sip before the kids can stop them and they turn into pirates. It's okay, but not my favorite story. I can't see the reason or the humor.

The fairy godmother turns a rat into a coachman, but then his sister is turned into a barking girl, then midnight strikes....what will they do?

Vividly illustrated dragons and children. Can an energetic dragon follow the rules? Written in good rhyming schemes with the repetitive phrase of, "Do not bring your dragon to recess."

A group of fruit named princesses must help out another fruit princess who lost all the bees that pollinate her fruit. The illustrations are colorful. The rhyming scheme is okay, but stretched in some places.

An Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! Book. If you like this series, you'll like this book. A creative lesson on individuality. The author uses green blades of grass as subjects. They each grow slightly differently except for one. This one doesn't know what his special ability until a lawn mower shaves them back and we find out. (I saw the lawnmower coming and knew what was going to happen and worried how the author would handle it, but it's well done.)

Animals throughout the book with cute rhymes about all the different types of babies.

It's a silly book. Chu goes to the beach, sneezes and the water separates and he can't seem to sneeze again to make it right until finally, he does and everything is better again.

This little history book covers Thanksgiving, The Boston tea party, The Bill of Rights, Washington crossing the Delaware, Honest Abe, Western expansion, First Flight, Ellis Island, wars for freedom, space travel, volunteering, and July 4th. It paints the United States in the way we want it to be.

A substitute is a monster. He comes into the classroom and starts telling kids what happens to kids that act up in class for substitutes. But Mr. Creacher isn't what he seems and after sharing a bit of loot that he stole when he was a child, he slowly returns to his boy self. The illustrations have dark hughes, almost poster like or comic like in places. I liked this book. As a former substitute, I can relate. ha ha ha.

A beautiful story of a grandfather telling his granddaughter the story of his fleeing from slavery via the underground railroad and how he came to own his own land and apple orchard.

A cute bedtime story but you say "sheep" a lot.

This is a longer story about Clyde, a bunny, that doesn't want to participate in the sports events because he feels he can't be part of a team. But then he finds out about individual events, and with encouragement from a friend, he tries and succeeds.

Caldecott Winner: If you get a magic pebble, you must think before you wish anything, or you'll be stuck in a rock until someone comes along and helps.

Beautiful free verse poems accompanied by almost photographic looking illustrations which depict the relationship between a father, his child, and their strong ties to prayer. This is a spiritual uplifting. A subtle showing of the strength of prayers.

A beautiful story of a father (with tons of patience) encouraging his daughter to be creative and be a princess before bedtime.

Joe and all his animal friends use the little red potty chair. The book uses phrases like, "Neat little bottom, round pink bottom, striped bottom, spotted bottom, white-feathered bottom, etc. It ends with the MC looking at the potty while zipping up his shorts.

Dad's uptight and still in his work clothes, but the fun of playing and sliding soon make him play way past the time the kids are tuckered out.

With modern illustrations & dark colors reminiscent of the title of the book, Eve takes us into a house with mother and child watching a riot across the street. In this short picture book, she shows love, fear, blessings, and how new relationships/friendships can be created through a shared experience.

There are no words printed in the book. It took me a minute to actually figure out the story and even then, I had to improvise. if you are good at telling stories based off of pictures, you'll like this. Some pages have 6 different illustrations on them (like a photo book), all of which are a different scene. I don't think I could read it aloud.

This book is me. What if this happens? What if that happens? But, despite their fears, the Wombat, Weasel, and Woodchuck went on their journey.

A biography of the life of Wilson Bentley (Willie) 1865-1931 - The man who photographed snowflakes.

The author takes you through a day and Pigs can accomplish anything with their can-do attitude. The illustrations are colorful. The text is a series of things, events, jobs etc. that pigs can do. It would be a good book to help a child bolster their "can-do" attitude, but it's not a "story" with a beginning, middle and end.

Beautiful illustrations accompanied by silly statements like, "Pigs, don't wear hats, hens never swim..."

An old tale about a Rabbi who shaped a giant man from clay. Golem's task was to kill those who persecuted the Jews of Prague. The book is kind of dark and has violence, but if you are looking for history that doesn't sugar coat things, then this would be it.

A princess doesn't speak so her royal parents offer gifts for the one who can make her speak. They all fail and finally a tiger comes. He succeeds, but then the princess leaves the castle with the tiger. It's an old tale, which makes no sense to me, but it is beautifully illustrated.

This is a longer word count book. Mirette works hard at her mom's bed and breakfast. Then she meets a high-wire man. But he not longer does shows because he's scared. Mirette practices and practices on his wire until he catches her doing it. In the end, the man must do a show to save the rest of them. He goes out on the wire but fright freezes him. It takes Mirette joining him on the wire for him to regain his head and from then on they are a high-wire act together.

A beautiful book about a grandfather showing and sharing with his grandchildren what he used to do on vaudeville.

A baby owl dies in this book- trigger warning. It's a cumulative book based on a West African Tale. It starts with a mosquito accidentally scaring an iguana who ten scares the python who then scares the rabbit, and so on. I liked it up until the baby owl, that really threw me and haunted me for the rest of the story.

Except for the fact that a fox gets its tail cut off (which is later sewn back on), this cumulative story is, though not realistic (I mean, would a chicken really give a fox an egg?), it is interesting and the illustrations are lovely. Based on an Armenian folktale.

I think it's a cute book. A young child is invited by the king and queen to an event and the child asks if he can bring a friend. The royal couple answer yes, that any friend of the child's is a friend of theirs. So the child brings animals. In the end, the child invites the royals to his place and it ends up being the zoo.

Its depiction of monsters is adorable and the boy has to leave his room to find them (they're not under the bed.) He starts out getting punished for doing "Wild Things" and sent to his room without dinner. Then he gets mad, meets all his monsters, but then misses his mom and when he returns, after banishing all the monsters, his dinner is waiting. I know some find this questionable because of the display of anger, but the boy calms his angry monsters and returns home, to find that he is loved because his dinner is waiting. To me, it's a time-out story but told from the feelings of a child.

The book takes you through the seasons of Penosbscot Bay. It's lyrical writing is about 3rd grade level. The images are soft pastel colors.

Caldecott Winner: I like the way the pages alternate black & white with color. The book is about the usefulness of trees.