Daddy Mojo

Lionel Messi’s World Cup Triumph, a graphic novel that scores

Show me a book that makes someone care about something that they don’t care about, or know much about, and you’ll show me a great book. Lionel Messi’s World Cup Triumph: History’s Greatest Games #1 takes that challenge and enthusiastically says “Goaaaaaal”, with as much enthusiasm and energy as fans would expect from the game. Yes, but the surprising part about Lionel Messi’s World Cup Triumph is that it takes one game from his career, the 2022 World Cup Finale, and infuses that, as well as his life, and the evolution of football itself into a graphic novel that entertains and makes you care.

Lionel Messi’s World Cup Triumph is a graphic novel that allows ‘readers’ and ‘sports kids’ to agree that this book is awesome.

Football reading awesomeness in a graphic novel

Lot and Lots of Ocelots make math students wish they had it earlier

Why do I need to remind our 14-year-old of his multiplication tables? He’s “on level”, got a B in eighth-grade math, but I’m still reminding him of what 8 x 8 or what 64 divided by 8 is. Something is amiss in the state of middle school mathematics. Lot and Lots of Ocelots: A Skip Counting Book does not have this problem. If anything, Lots and Lots of Ocelots is the pre-school and early-elementary school- kryptonite to a problem that could vex kids in four-to-seven years.

Lot and Lots of Ocelots: A Skip Counting Book is the fun, effortlessly educational book that delayed middle school math students secretly wish that they had seven years earlier.

I say skip, you say count, Skip, count, skip count

Blood in the Water is younger-skewing mglit that speaks to grades 4-7

Blood in the Water has a nice, bubbling sense of tension. Creating a book for mid-elementary school through mid-middle school can’t be easy. That age is learning to read chapter books, reluctant to read anything, or too ensconced in fart-borne books to care about anything else. Young readers in that eight through 14 demographic want to read something with bite and suspense. Throw in the caveat that said book needs to be age-appropriate, and you’ve got a bit of a challenge on your hands.

Blood in the Water is realistic fiction, albeit on the dramatic end, that will speak to kids in upper elementary through lower middle school.

For a season, this book will scratch the itch

Louisa Learns to Write, illustrated book works for kids aged seven and up.

Louisa Learns to Write is an illustrated book that’s unlike anything you’ve seen before. It tells a story, but not in a manner that elementary school audiences are used to. It operates on two levels without audiences realizing it until the end of the book. As the titular character is growing up, she’s learning deeper life lessons that translate to anyone, regardless of age. Louisa Learns to Write: Louisa May Alcott Creates Little Women isn’t so much about the creation of the seminal piece of literature, as it is about the things that shaped Alcott’s life.

Louisa Learns to Write is not the illustrated book you think it is. Little Women author, Louisa May Alcott’s macro look at the characteristics that made her successful.

Louisa May Alcott, yes, but more

Actual Factual Files: Ancient Egypt, gets young ages to read non-fiction

When I was in elementary and middle school I was knee-deep in curiosity about ancient Egypt. I also wasn’t a reader at that age. The internet didn’t exist and if I wanted to browse information on a topic I had to look through an encyclopedia. Yes, my family had a set of them, which weren’t used nearly as often as my parents would’ve wished. I remember my sister searching in vain for information on the cold war and having to ask my father instead. RIP, the physical monolith of Encyclopedia Britannica. Actual Factual Files: Ancient Egypt is the time-traveling book I needed when I was seven years old.

Actual Factual Files: Ancient Egypt is the most approachable, non-intimidating and informative text aimed at elementary school readers on the area we’ve seen.

Lock, meet key

The Furious is a new classic of an action film for fans of the genre

The Furious is a near-perfect action film. There are a couple of logical improbabilities. The biggest one being a skinny street kid holding an escape rope made from blankets for children who are exiting a fourth story window. In a movie that’s just under two hours long, and being a genre with a very lenient curve automatically applied to it, that’s amazing. People will compare The Furious to The Raid and they’re correct, but it’s so much more than just another martial arts movie.

The Furious is fabulous, and not in a Wayland Flowers way. This film hits the center of the target in action and martial arts movie enjoyment in sequences, and its craft.

Believe the hype, it’s a new standard in action movies

No, No, No, a timeless book that effortlessly teaches via fun and art

Noemi Vola has a style. It could be more appropriate to say that Tra Publishing has a style and Noemi Vola’s art fits nicely into their groove. No, No, No is an illustrated book that’s smarter than you think it is. Its eye-catching cover feature a large yellow thing that could be a frog, who is in a small pond on a sunny day. There’s a spider, or a small octopus behind this yellow thing who is holding two ice cream cones that are melting on its Kraken-like arms.

No, No, No is a sublime illustrated book that uses gorgeous art and a very simple premise that allows young audiences to become aware of un-needed variables around us.

Release the kraken to fight the negativity, be yourself

The Second Life of Snap is an elementary school reader’s dystopian best friend

Say this about The Second Life of Snap: it knows its target. Older readers might look at its cover and draw parallels to The Iron Giant. They could alter their opinion after looking at the back cover and see that our heroine is accompanied by three other kids. The three of them are seated on some nondescript rubble of a not-too-distant society, while Zuzu is on Snap’s shoulders. The subtitle to the book is, A girl, A robot, A race for the future, so readers will know that it’s dystopian to an extent.

The Second Life of Snap is a contained story with enough mystery, adventure, science-fiction and heart to equally hook in boy or girl elementary school readers.

Ages 8-12 come hither and read