Reviews

Gr 4—6—In this timely novel, Carestio tells the story of Jack, whose soldier father died in Afghanistan...

Gr 9 Up—Growing up in the badlands of Wyoming, Grace Carpenter, 14, has longed for some way to escape the dullness of small-town life...

Gr 9 Up—England's Stonehenge receives a million visitors a year, and they all leave with unanswered questions about who built this unusual stone circle, when and how it was constructed, and what was its intended purpose...

Gr 7 Up—A 16-year-old boy with intermittent explosive disorder and a fondness for the comforts of home finds the remoteness and lack of electricity at his grandfather's house in Tasmania an added hardship to his sentence for causing an episode in a Melbourne fast-food restaurant that resulted in thousands of dollars of damage...

Gr 2—4—These dual-purpose introductions to nature and to graphic texts include a how-to-read-panels diagram on their back covers...

PreS-Gr 1—When Mama Duck's recalcitrant egg finally hatches, everyone finds the baby's sharp claws, large teeth, and swooshing tail a puzzling sight...

K-Gr 1—These slim titles, with two exceptions, are so simplistic that there is hardly any content...

Gr 2—3—Though not particularly helpful for quick identification—"Most butterflies fly during the day," while "Most moths fly at night," is a characteristic distinction—these dual profiles of common creatures should give budding naturalists an increased understanding of how scientists use appearance and behavior to classify sometimes-similar living things, along with introducing important terms like "cephalothorax" and "chrysalis...

K-Gr 4—In this fractured version of two classic tales, reset in the Northern Piney Woods of Maine, Punzel, "with long, long goldie hair," is locked in a tower by a witch to keep her hair from dragging on the dirty ground and getting muck in it...