Jeremy, the cat has gotten his first cone. An animal cone is something that keeps them from biting, scratching, and licking themselves after medical appointments. It’s like a cast on a human. At first, Jeremy doesn’t like their cone and derides that they’ll never be the same again. Until they find some good features of their cone and then realize that there are advantages. This book was fun. The cats felt real, and the story was sure to be understandable by anyone who’s had a medical device in their way. The illustrations are lovely and soft and the perfect match to go with the story. 

 

This book is simply various letters. Nelson writes his dad while his father is incarcerated. The reader sees the months passing by and hear’s Nelson‘s questions on why are things taking so long? Are you happy, when will you be home, etc. At the end of the book the author gives advice for writing letters as well as reasons and things too, and do not say. Well, I like this book and I think it does a good job, changes in our prisons and jail systems in the US may make this book useless sooner than later. For example, there are mail services that take a prisoner‘s letter, scan them, and send them digitally to the prisoner, instead of allowing them to have the actual letter. But if the prisoner can’t afford a prison tablet or device and must wait their turn on the shared device it may delay. their getting these messages for days if not weeks. And the ability to return messages also is very much impacted on the prisoners’ ability to pay. I do find it interesting that the author did not include any letters home and does not bother to explain why Dad never writes back. 

 

Dot and duck are playing. But not with each other. Duck has brought out toys and made their own imaginative toys out of sticks. But Dot takes things from Duck. And Duck’s refrain is always how selfish. This is typical behavior you would see in kids. And overall, I guess the story works. There are things that give me pause. At one point duck goes ouch that hurt. and that just hangs there. No apologies. No checking to make it better. No are you OK. Also Dots reaction when Duck says they’ll tell seems a tad bit extreme. This may be an adult reading too much into this. While I like the illustrations, I think they are well done and timeless. I would have a hard time sharing this story because of what I see within the pages. 

 

This is an interesting story. Some kids are bored and set up a Kindness Booth. They end up helping people around the neighborhood with various things. When it starts to rain and the kindness booth has to come down, the neighborhood repays their kindness to keep the party going. Overall, this book is lovely. There seems to be a gap that the illustrations help cover. Going from the kindness booth to the tent. The words don’t tell the story and you just have to assume they’re in a tent or they didn’t run into a community center or something. But overall it works and the illustrations are lovely. 

 

This book was well done. It was both interesting and entertaining. And this is one of the rare cases in this series where the picture story is quite a bit different from the timeline story at the end. The picture story left questions that were filled in by the timeline story. So often in these books, one just repeats the other. The illustrations are typical of the series, but one thing they do need to be wary of is laying dark lettering over dark backgrounds. There are many pages, especially purple pages, that are hard to read. 

 

This book feels more like a fan crush than a biography. The word hero is loosely thrown around frequently in this book. Considering other books in the series, I don’t think the word hero applies. Plus, the author chose to include information that easily dates the book. Things like saying they are the best paid actor ever. Maybe at the time the book was written, but even then, not really. There are other factors to consider, and I find that this is one of the series books I would not recommend at all. It feels like it was chosen to grab the attention and the money of parents taking their kids to the movies. 

 

Thao Lam is a master storyteller. I have enjoyed other books by this author but would consider this among their best work. Honestly, I’m surprised this does not have a Caldicott. This is her mother ‘s refugee story told entirely in pictures. This story is heart wrenchingly beautiful. And the analogy of refugees as ants and what can and did happen. I’m very thankful the author chose to include at the end a history of their family and where the ants came from. It’s such an emotional connection to an emotional book. Picture books about refugees are not new but using the illustrations to say why they are refugees, what was happening, and how hard this was is masterful. I think this picture book is one that will be used for years to come to help explain what being a refugee is like. This book is heartbreaking but shows resiliency just like everyday ants. 

This was adorable. You have a monster trying to convince his friends and those around them that they are big and scary and not ready for bed. While the friends go along with things, it’s like any type of friends group. It’s a story you’ll know and love by the actions you’ve taken,but your kids will love it for the combination of rhyming cadence and side conversation. Illustrations are bright and colorful and work quite well with this story.

 

This is an early reader. I know it’s a series but it’s the first one I have read. I have been attracted to the book cover Pinterest. This is adorable. It really reminds me of the Whisper the Unicorn books. I haven’t read one of those in decades, but as I’m reading through it, that’s what I think of. These are short little beignets, easy to read first chapters, lots of colors and simple words. It would not surprise me if these were frequent checkouts. 

 

1st complaint is the illustrator is not given cover credit. And that’s a shame as the illustrations are fantastic. The illustrations enlive in the words in the story and yet the illustrator gets no credit until the title page. 

This book sounds more like Jimmy Fallon. I see a shadow of him in my head as I read this. The cadence matches how he talks on his show and how he does interviews. The story rhymes and sometimes it’s a bit tongue twisty. Overall, this book works and I see why it’s brought out every holiday. It was quite enjoyable. I did think the ending was a little blah, but overall it works.