10 Cats is such a logical counting book, that’s also utterly original that you’ll want to slap yourself for not thinking of it first. It’s a counting book that combines the seek-and-find aspect that young ages have seen in some books but adds kittens. Oh, it is a counting book where pre-k and kindergarten ages learn to count, but instead of counting up, 10 Cats asks readers to find kittens with certain color patterns or other distinguishing marks.
Uphill, both ways, that’s the cliché that parents will use when describing how challenging things were when they were younger as compared to today’s children. It’s usually preceded or followed by “back in my day” for full get-off-of-my-lawn effect. In that vein, Men of the 65th: The Borinqueneers of the Korean War has the very challenging goal of making readers care about a regiment that they probably haven’t heard of from a war that they most likely know nothing about. To make things even more problematic, the book is aimed at middle and high school students.
The question behind Dare to Question: Carrie Chapman Carr’s Voice for the Vote seems so simple in hindsight. However, in the late 1800s, the fact that women weren’t able to vote was a given, a fact of life whose era was coming to an end thanks to suffrage. Dare to Question is an illustrated book that takes a look at the end of that issue thanks to Carrie Chapman Carr. And depending on the adult who’s reading the book it’ll take off in just the right direction and get young readers thinking about things that they think might be out of their control.
The graphic novel genre is huge. It’s a massive cross section of books that can span any interest and are for any age. As proof of this, Batter Up, Charlie Brown!, it’s in the Peanuts Graphic Novels series on Simon Spotlight, and joins Snoopy Soars to Space and Adventures with Linus and Friends. There’s a timeless, classic aura that permeates every panel on every page of Batter Up, Charlie Brown! It’s comprised of six new, original stores that are punctuated with classic Sunday comics that Charles Schultz created.
Trilogies are tricky business. Which came first, the trilogy or the story? That’s the question that sometimes vexes readers and reviewers. If you add too much backstory then it could water down the traction that readers would have with the characters, but if you don’t add enough then people won’t be emotionally invested in them. I completely understand the creative will to have more than one book, but am aware that it can be perceived as simply needing multiple entries to sell books. It’s a thin line, isn’t it? Once Upon Another Time: Happily Ever After (or Once Upon Another Time 3) deftly approaches that line, happily looks over it, and then dances back and forth over that line on repeated occasions.
Oppenheimer, the film by Christopher Nolan has usurped Russians from Dream of the Blue Turtles as the leading edge of cultural awareness for “father of the atomic bomb”. In that song, Sting flippantly introduced the subject as “Oppenheimer’s deadly toy”. In reality, his relationship was much more complex with nuclear weapons than that; but kudos to Sting for introducing a name to millions of folks who otherwise wouldn’t have heard it until now. Oppenheimer is a big film in the most Christopher Nolan manner possible. It’s a three-hour dramatic tour de force that grabs viewers by their shirt collars and maintains its grip for the vast majority of its run time.
You don’t need to read Roll With It in order to enjoy Time to Roll. As a matter of fact, that first book snuck up on us because it adhered to the age-old saying of not judging a book by its cover. Time to Roll follows that formula so successfully that it doesn’t feel like a sequel to another book, but it is. Part of that is our fault because we’ve seen too many follow-ups, sequels, or properties that intended to make themselves multiple entries; but instead merely check off formulaic boxes. Middle school readers, if they give Time To Roll an opportunity, will find themselves enjoying a story that they never thought they would.
Watch Out For The Lion! Is the brother from another mother to The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover. It’s a trick that will cause young readers will lean forward as books like this are being read to them. The page shows a yellow tail with a bob of tan fur at its end, surely this is the lion that the book warned readers about. This is the fun, breathless sort of book that runs with energy when the reader and the crowd are synchronized.
Copy Protected by Chetan's WP-Copyprotect.
Facebook
Twitter
Flickr
GooglePlus
Youtube