This book is part of the Woke Baby Smart Senses series. In the back it says it’s never too young to start being a scientist and this book really worked towards that. The cover would make one think this is a simple board book, but it’s a very well-done rhyming book about, the sense of hearing. It not only covers big noises and small noises but people who can’t hear how they might communicate, or why certain things like seeing somebody speak may be needed. This is advanced, but it works quite well, and I could see kids wanting to have it read to them again. 

 

This is a very well-done. It’s meant for elementary and middle grade about not just consent but bodily autonomy, and how things are changing. It does a great job of sharing examples and using illustrations to get its point across. It makes the difference between “consent” or “enthusiastic consent”, and the “maybe” type of consent. It also has lessons about when to talk to somebody like an adult or a parent, and when things might be more than you expected them to be. It does touch on porn and how porn is not necessarily a great example to follow. It packs a lot into a few pages. This book is wordy and a little repetitive when read all at once. But chapter by chapter it’s good not just for kids who are interested but could be used in school curriculum and with kids whether alone or gathered in groups. 

 

This book just didn’t work for me. The poem is nice but almost nonsensical. The illustrations are okay but not my favorite. I am just the wrong reader for this book. It’s not bad but it’s not what I would recommend either. 

 

This was fun and unique. A girl has her first period and learns that she can see ghosts. She is what her family calls a medium and not everybody in her family has this special ability. She starts seeing ghosts in various places, makes friends with them, and helps solve a problem. This book looks both at family, at gentrification of neighborhoods, and how time changes. That’ll be checked out by kids for years to come. 

 

What happens when a newly made vampire and a newly diabetic teen get stuck in make up class together. You get this book. Two teenagers coming back from a medical absence in school are required to work together in a special class until they’re ready to be back in the main class. And while they suffer from two very different things, they find friendship and kinship in their abilities and disabilities. This book was, almost too sweet. It ran a little long. Also in the beginning, there was a bit of confusion. The art is OK, but the artist draws almost all their men like women, so I went in thinking I was getting a novel and it’s not. I’m not just saying the main character I mean almost all the men are drawn feminine. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it did make things a little confusing in the beginning when the story relied more on the pictures in the words. This book was good but not will be talking about in 20 years. 

 

This is the beginning to what feels like a fantastic mystery/horror graphic novel. Book one ends entirely too soon. I need books two and three now. The cover does not do a good job of explaining what’s in these pages but at the same time it’s a perfect cover. The art is a retro 70s throwback that feels like this could run with the Scooby gang via Sherlock Holmes. I want to know where this is going, I want more, and I want them now. 

 

This is a simple alphabet book. The only thing that makes it remotely special is that it’s about Australia so kids would see things they don’t see in other alphabet books like quokkas and Ulurus. 

 

I loved Mary Downing Hahn books as a child. She has a way of writing horror that can scare the Jesus out of a child, but not so much that they don’t continue to love the genre. This graphic novel does an OK job. It is better than other books in the graphic novel Hahn books. The graphic novels are very wordy and long. Sometimes they’re a pain to get through. This one wasn’t a pain, but one felt every page. I’m also not a big fan of the art style. It works with the books, but I don’t find it complements the story. Overall, I do like this book because I like the original it’s based on. If not for that, I might not suggest this to other readers. 

 

This is a lovely story of meeting your father for the first time. Our main gal has lived with her mother her entire life. She’s never met her dad, but now her mom‘s off to Europe for the summer and she has to spend the summer with a stranger. Not only is she meeting her dad for the first time there’s a language barrier as her dad is from Guatemala and speaks little English. The neighborhood he lives in speaks little English. However, these two will find common grounds and a family relationship that makes a heart sing. This book was a lovely story about birth family, found family, and making your own type of family. It’s a wonderful story for any age. 

 

I love these illustrations. They’re so bright and colorful that kids are going to want to turn page after page. This song rhymes well, has a great cadence, and moves happily along. The one thing that I find is weird is every stanza starts with bless.  Bless this, bless that. There’s no wrap up. There’s no understanding of what it means to bless. Is this a religious book or is this a word being used in place of something the author can’t name? Overall, I like this book and I can see getting checked out a lot, but I do find it a little odd.