Reviews written by Karen Yingling, Staff Reviewer

A little girl LOVES color, and is dismayed when she thinks about a world in black and white. We see good examples of this; we see a full color page on the left, but a black and white page on the right, often continuations of the color picture. This gives...

Ripley is a blue marle Border Collie who is meant to be trained as a guide dog like his litter mates, but he is too distractable for that. Ben, a firefighter, thinks that he might be of use to the fire department, since he is an intelligent dog. When Ben...

It goes without saying that if a middle grade character moves, chances are very good that it will be into a house that is haunted. I liked that this had a bit of a twist, with Callahan House being a home that had been in the family since 1966, with...

A little girl and her mother are cooking a meal for their famiglia, and as they are cooking, more and more relatives show up with their favorite dishes to prepare. Nonna wants lasagna, Zio Tony wants ravioli, and Zia Trini even brings her cat, Houdini and her parrot, Pokey, who...

Squirrel is trying to find an acorn that he buried, but despite having dug up several areas, he can't find it! He asks his friend Deer if he has taken it, but cuts off Deer's explanation. The same scenario is repeated with Skunk, Racoon, and Woodpecker. He's leery of Fox's...

Cubby and his Daddy go out into the woods with their friends, the badger and rabbit families, to cut down a tree for Christmas. Daddy helps haul everyone and all of the trees home on a sled, and the families get to work in their separate lairs to decorate the...

In 1935, Lucille is living in a small village in Haiti with her father, who is a woodworker, and her aunt Lila, since her mother passed away shortly after Lucille was born. Lucille can hear the mapou tree sing to her, and feels that her mother communicates with her that...

Valeria Salomón lives in Utah with her grandmother (Lita) and grandfather, who is also her soccer coach for the Overlords. Her parents were very young when she was born, and her father has only visited her five times, since he lives on the east coast and travels a lot as...

While there are a lot of collective sports biographies, like Sourcebooks 100 Athletes Who Shaped Sports, and 100 Baseball Legends, Allen's Girls Race!, and Stabler's Kid Athletes, I haven't seen one that focused on athletes from a wide variety of backgrounds and sports that were firsts. This...

Nick likes everything just so. He always has. He's not a fan of unscheduled surprises, disorderly environments, or loud noises. When things are too much for him, he retreats to his super tidy room, but after a while, that starts to feel lonely. His parents, who have apparently not been...

Marlowe Wexler has a decent summer planned, working at a local ice cream parlor alongside her crush, Akilah. Things go well, until they don't. An excellent date at the Cheesecake Factory ends with some light arson (due to a defective candle), and before she knows it, Akilah has taken another...

The more humans move inside away from nature, the more young children don't know about the world around them. If you haven't been allowed to play in a creek, you won't have seen the variety of critters that frolic in the mud and water. This lengthy sticker books takes a...

Mouths. All living creatures have them, right? I was amazed at the variety of types of mouths, teeth, and various mouth parts that animals use for feeding when I read this book. Can you see a snail licking a lollipop? Well, I guess they could rub the sweet treat up...

I have recently decided that birds are kind of creepy, with their pointy little beaks and soulless eyes, but if you have given this book to me as I child, it would have never left my side. I would have required a backpack, binoculars, camera, and snacks, and would have...

It is always more fun to fold out pages than just turn them, and this clever arrangement is put to good use in this fact packed overview of Ancient Rome. Starting with a plain map and basic history, we can fold the page up and find out more about food,...