The Night Dragon by Naomi Howarth

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I recently favorably reviewed this artist's book Tug of War. I had slightly mixed feelings about that, but this book is not so much an order of magnitude greater, as it is in a different universe. It's a pure pleasure to read.

For some reason, this book did not want to download from Net Galley, but I'm glad I persisted. After three attempts it finally came down - dragons are like that! - and it turned out to be one of the most gorgeously-illustrated children's books I've ever read.

The cover looks like it's lit with neon lights, and the interior is one breathtaking image after another. Maud is a rainbow joy especially when compared with the earth tomes of the other dragons. I read this in my iPad, but out of curiosity I downloaded it to my iPhone too, and it still looked good on there although the text is too small to read without stretching the image on the screen, but the pictures are worth having in your pocket!

Maud is a very shy night dragon and while her four colleagues (they're not really friends) launch every evening to spew out soot and darken the sun for night time, Maud sits and dreams. Her only true friend is the mouse who urges her to fly, but Maud is shy.

One afternoon the other four dragons have a party - Maud isn't invited it needles to say - and afterwards the others are so sleepy that they fail to awaken to start the night. It's all up to Maud! It turns out that Maud really isn't like the other dragons after all. Instead of sooty, dark sunsets, she breathes out the most fiery orange, startling yellow, deep red, heliotrope, and gold sunsets you ever saw. She flies all around the world delivering this brilliant bounty of beauty, and finally comes into her own - as any artist will given sufficient encouragement and support!

I loved this book and I recommend it as a worthy read for children young and old.

Super Narwhal and Jelly Jolt by Ben Clanton

Rating: WORTHY!

This is another in the Narwhal series, and it features Narwhal becoming a super hero - a sea-per hero? His sidekick is of course his friend, the electric jellyfish! One amusing thing about narwhals is that though they are, technically, toothed whales (akin to the dreaded orcas!), they are toothless - having only vestigial teeth loitering in their gums apart that is, from that one magnificent canine that sticks out like a unicorn's horn. The irony of this is that narwhals are a living kick in the teeth to creationists, which is one more reason to love them. You'd have to be a pretty inept or clueless creator god to 'design' a narwhal!

Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea by Ben Clanton

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a short, fun, colorful book about a narwhal and his relationship with his friend the jellyfish and other creatures of the ocean. narwhals are real, unicorns are not, and the narwhal's 'horn' isn' actually a horn, but a deformed canine tooth! Believe it or not. Narwhals are cetaceans, meaning that they are mammals just like humans - well, not just like! This book introduces the narwhal and sets up the series.

Birds of a Feather by Lorin Lindner

Rating: WORTHY!

This book is subtitled "A True Story of Hope and the Healing Power of Animals" but too often in reading it, I wondered if that subtitle should have read, "A True Story of Finding the Love of My life" given how much of the text is devoted to the author's partner, who was one of the vets she help bring back into society through what might be loosely described as her 'pairing with a parrot' technique.

There were so many vets who needed this help and according to the text, they got it, but only two of them seemed to get anywhere near the coverage that her husband gets. I found this to be peculiar and slightly annoying. I know he's more important to her than anyone else, but objectively, he's not more important than any other vet, nor was his case unique in any significant way. To be frank, I felt this rather cheapened her message and demeaned other veterans a little bit, but overall, I thought the story was too important and valuable to dismiss it on these grounds alone.

So that irritation aside, I found this book to be a worthy read because it really does get into the problems that both the birds and the vets have, although I could have done without the totally fictional account of the early life of one of her feathered charges named Sammy. Although the story of her capture is firmly rooted in the reality of the abusive wild capture of these magnificent and intelligent birds, the story she told in this particular case was way too anthropomorphized and melodramatic, and it almost made me quit reading the book in disgust.

After that though, things looked up considerably. We learn of how the author, in training to be a psychologist, came to be the caretaker of Sammy, a salmon-crested cockatoo, also known as a Moluccan cockatoo, who had been kept in the most appalling conditions. These birds are a part of the parrot family, although they are not true parrots, and most of these creatures are used to living in flocks. They are very intelligent and they suffer considerably when confined to cages, and neglected through lack of attention and stimulation. I noted at one point that the author erroneously describes budgerigars as “frequently but erroneously called a parakeet” but budgies are indeed parakeets! The author is in error!

This suffering of intelligent animals applies to very many sentient creatures of course, but some such as the parrot family, the corvids, the cetaceans, the canines, along with elephants, monkeys, and great apes, feel it much more because they are so very intelligent and sensitive. It isn't surprising, in this regard, that people do anthropomorphize them, and though I balk somewhat at that, I do not have any doubt that they need to be treated much more like humans - or perhaps more like children - than ever they are at present.

That does not mean they necessarily think as we do or perceive things in the same way we do, but it does mean they must be treated with respect, and as individuals, and as thinking, feeling beings, not as "nothing but animals." This is why owning a parrot is an unwise move. As the author points out, they form attachments and are long-lived. Additionally, they need the freedom to fly and explore, and they need frequent companionship.

It's downright cruel to buy one and stick it in a cage in the corner of the room and think you are caring for it. You're not. It's equally cruel to care for one and then give it up after it has formed an attachment to you. It seriously hurts them and it takes them a long time to recover and re-socialize. It's far better not to own any sort of parrot, especially if you want your house to be quiet and your furniture to remain intact....

The book is short and has short and quite pithy chapters, although there is some repetition in the pages and the story is more about the author, her husband, and parrots than it is about veterans although the latter are not exactly neglected by any means. The author tells us her story of how she first got to caring for parrots and how she also, through her work, got to caring for troubled veterans, and how purely accidentally, these two aspects of her life came to coincide with the sum being far greater, more amazing, and infinitely more worthwhile that either section was on its own.

Although, as I mentioned, the story is irritating at times, overall - be warned! - it's a real tear-jerker and the stories of how both the veterans and the parrots are treated - or more à propos, mistreated, can be heart-breaking, but the author, through her sterling efforts created, with the help of the veterans, and advised by the parrots, a haven, and the result is truly startling and exemplary. I recommend this book fully.

Splashdance by Liz Starin

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a book for children, about prejudice and determination, amusingly illustrated, beautifully written. Ursula and Ricardo are training hard for the water ballet competition. The prize is a million dollars and Ursula, who happens to be a bear, is confident they can win...until, that is, they see a sign "No Bears Allowed" at the pool! Other hairy animals are allowed in, but for some reason, bears are being profiled.

That's not even the worst thing to happen! Ricardo ditches Ursula for a giraffe - still hairy, but not banned! Thus provides some great talking points for a discussion with your child about prejudice and about lost friendships. Is your friend really a friend if they abandon you - especially when the abandonment stems from an unjust act against you? It's a good lead-in to talk about rumor and cruelty, and discriminating against people for unjust reasons.

The thing about Ursula though, is that she doesn't give up. She teams up with a bunch of misfit animals and they practice so hard, and sneak into the tournament anyway! In the end, fun is had, minds are changed, and a good lesson is learned. I liked this book and I recommend it as a worthy read for young children. I loved the title!

Polar Bear's Underwear by Tupera Tupera

Rating: WORTHY!

Tupera Tupera is a duo of authors who write children's books in Japan, where this book is known cutely as Shirokuma No Pants. The actual names of Tupera Tupera are Tatsuya Kameyama and Atsuko Nakagawa.

Polar Bear has new underwear, but can't find it anywhere! What a scare! Is it here, is it there? Is it rare to have a bare bear? The underwear is, as it happens quite close at hand, but your child will have to turn a few pages to find it unless they're very sharp-eyed! Little underwear-shaped cut-outs in every other page reveal the underwear of the next suspect in the list. Can you guess who is wearing the pants? Do they belong to Polar Bear? And why not? There are lots of questions here and each has an answer.

This struck me as a charming little book which provides a mystery and an adventure any young child can enjoy. Of course there's always the possibility that a page with a hole in it might tear if not handled gently, but children's book pages can tear anyway if the child is a little too aggressive, so I don't see this as an issue - not when compared with the activity and discovery. I thought this was a worthy read for young children, and it's the kind of adventure you can't really duplicate in an ebook. Fortunately I know exactly where my underwear is...or do I? Excuse me! Gotta run!

When Friendship Followed me Home by Paul Griffin

Rating: WARTY!

Read by the author - who actually doesn't do too bad of a job - this was another failed audiobook trial. The subject matter! Oh the subject matter. It's aimed at middle-grade boys, and is supposed to be your typical "I survived middle school" story for boys, but what it felt like to me was that the author seemed like he really wanted to tell a Star Wars story without paying a licensing fee to do so.

The first chapter opened with a quote from a Star Wars movie which didn't augur well, and if that had been all there was, it would have been fine, but then there were several more references to Star Wars in that same chapter. That's when I quit it. In the first chapter. It seriously rubbed me up the wrong way. I have devoutly gone off Star Wars - not that I was ever a huge dedicated fan or anything, but while I'm not quite anti-Star Wars, I'm also definitely not remotely interested in it anymore, after episode seven turned out to be nothing more than a remake of episode four. The whole series is uninventive and derivative and it's not entertaining or even interesting to me. So this book was a derivative of a derivative movie series! LOL!

The story is supposedly about this disaffected kid who is adopted by an older woman, and who knows when she retires in three years she's going to move with him to a different locale, so he decides it's not worth making friends? What a moron! Then of course he befriends this dog. Barf. I love dogs, but I hate stories about them. They've been overdone. I'm not even sure why I picked this up at the library, because the whole idea seems way too sugary now I think about it! I can only explain it by positing that I picked up a book, thought it looked okay but not that great, then changing my mind after putting it back, I pulled the wrong book back off the shelf! LOL!

I honestly cannot face listening to any more of that, especially when I have other audiobooks to go at. I'm sure there are middle-graders who will enjoy a story such as this one but that doesn't mean I have to rate it a worthy read! It's schlock and of the lowest form (unless it magically changed after the point at which I quit - which I seriously doubt). It's unimaginative and uninventive, and I can't recommend it.

Panda-monium by Stuart Gibbs

Rating: WARTY!

Read slightly annoyingly by Gibson Frazier, this audiobook started out interestingly enough. It's part of a series where the middle-grade boy solves mysteries. Frankly, if this is to be the basis of my judgment (I have no other!) then Teddy Fitzroy really doesn't do very much and worse, his life really isn't very interesting! This is, I believe, the fourth in this series, all set in a zoo-cum-theme park named FunJungle - evidently based on SeaWorld® in San Antonio, Texas.

The panda disappeared apparently from a moving truck on a highway, such that when the truck left, the panda was on board, and when the truck arrived, it was no longer there. I thought a cool way to do this for a kids' book would be to have a false panel at the far end of the trailer, so that the panda could be hid behind it and the truck looked empty, but given that the FBI were involved in this investigation (pandas are considered to be the property of China), I doubt such a ruse would fool them!

I never did find out how the theft was done because I DNF'd this one after about a third of it. Judging the rest of the book from what I did read though, it seems to me that there would have been a perfectly mundane explanation - nothing special or daring. As it was, the part of this book that I could bear to listen to was simply too boring, too slowly moving, and had nothing entertaining to offer me. Appropriately aged readers may disagree, but for me, I can’t recommend this and I will not be reading any more in this series. The characters held nothing for me, being a bunch of spoiled, privileged brats, and the story was too light and lacking in substance.

Some other reviewers have mentioned that this author was or is a writer for Disney and that this book had some Disney-ish aspects to it and I can see that in retrospect, but that wasn't on my mind when I was listening to it. I just didn't find it engaging at all. The characters were unappealing and I cannot recommend it as a worthy read.

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt

Rating: WORTHY!

Read by Lyle Lovett of all people, and pretty decently too, this audiobook turned out to be a worthy listen despite some annoyances, which may well not be so annoying for the middle grade reader this is evidently aimed at.

The true blue scouts are raccoons Bingo and J'miah, who are newly recruited to report on events in the swamp to their overlord, the Sugar Man, who I suspected from the off was a bear of some sort, but in the end I had no idea what he was! Meanwhile in the human world there are machinations going on! A developer wants to take over the swamp and turn it into some sort of theme park, and he has the support of the admirably-named Yeager Stitch (spelling - this was an audiobook after all!) who wrestles alligators for a living. You know how this is going to end, so the fun is the journey there and the author keeps it fun for the most part, especially in detailing the antics of the raccoons, and a band of unruly hogs.

My problems with it were two-fold. The first of these was the sound effects which I assume were written into the text, such as the attack of a rattler being described as snip-snap, zip-zap, which was annoying (as well as inaccurate) the first time I heard it, let alone the tenth. Also the idea of drawing out the letter 's' in words spoken by snakes is so far overdone these days that it's just irritating and not even mildly imaginative. Let's cut that out shall we? I could have done without those sound effects, but maybe younger kids will like them. The other issue was more serious because it relates to the overall theme, which seemed to be environmental - in that more than one party was working to protect the swamp from being plowed under and cemented over.

That's all well and good. No problem there, but one of the parties expressing astonishment that someone was planning on destroying the swamp was also the same one which was running a café that served sugar pie, which was made by pillaging the sugar cane that grew near the café. No one said a word about replanting this cane, to keep it replenished, All I ever heard was the clear-cutting of it to get the sugar. That sends a poor message right there and a hypocritical one too. You can't protect the environment by raping it. That's like cola company saying they're replacing every drop of water they suck up from the environment to feed us diabetes-inducing drinks, and then carefully arranging their accounting so they're really doing no such thing, but it looks like they are from a certain perspective.

That aside this story was entertaining and amusing, so I'm going to let the environmental snafu slide in this case and rate this a worthy read.

Lily Pond by Shelley Daniels Lekven

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This book has to be seen to be believed, although you can look at some illustrations on the author's book website: http://lilypondbook.com. Make sure you type only a total of two Ls in Lily! Otherwise the entire Internet will break down, weeping and not knowing where to go or what to do!

I don't know how someone can find the patience to do something like this, with this level of inventiveness, let along find the time - and the skill in the first place - but she did it, and it's awesome to behold. This is why she's known for her art work on movies like Toy Story, James and the Giant Peach, and The Nightmare Before Christmas (she's on IMDB!).

The story is of the cutely-named Lily Pond (no relation to Amy Pond as far as I know), on the cusp of her eight birthday, imagining with great imagination all the things she can do or be, and the adventures she will have as she matures. She has a bunch of choices as does any young girl who wants to follow her own dream and is willing to go after it fiercely enough. This story is inspirational, informative, and beautifully illustrated with the photographs of the painstaking clay sculptures the author created. Amazing! I recommend this highly.

Tug of War by Naomi Howarth

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a sweet and fun story of how brains beats brawn. I'm not sure it was a good advisory on how to make friends though. The story is that the elephant and the hippopotamus both reject the friendship overtures of the tortoise because it's small and wrinkled and slow. The tortoise challenges each of them to a tug of war which they both accept, but what they don't know is that they're tugging against each other, not against the tortoise!

In the end they all become friends. I'm far from convinced that having friends that dumb and bigoted is worth all this effort, but who knows? Maybe the tortoise will be a positive influence in their lives. Hippos are known to be irascible; elephants, not so much, and they're really smart, too, so while on the one hand I resent the elephant being misrepresented, I also found the story entertaining for kids who aren't going to analyze it at all. Plus it teaches a lesson about teaching lessons, so on balance, I consider this to be a worthy read.

Chilly da Vinci by Jarrett Rutland

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This children's book of a little over forty pages tells the entertaining and educational story of the inventor penguin who won't give up. It's a good lesson to learn in life. Adrift on an iceberg, which is slowly being chiseled away by a very hungry orca, Chilly has to devise a plan to rescue himself and his fellow drifters before the ice barge completely collapses and they all become killer whale crunchy breakfast cereal.

While the other penguins are standing around panicked and hilariously chanting "Gakker gakker gakker," young Chilly is chilling with his blueprints (actually more like sepia prints), and scraps retrieved from floating sea junk (which is a serious problem in real life). Can he rescue them? Why do blurb writers idiotically ask these asinine questions? Of course he can! And yes, the ex-special forces guy will rescue the child, and yes the failed woman who an back home will find true love. Why insult us with a dumb question like that?! LOL! Fortunately this blurb writer is smarter and more inventive than that, which I truly appreciated. I loved this book and fully recommend it.

A Sea of Love by Wilfred Lupano, Grégory Panaccione

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Illustrated by Panaccione in a playful cartoonish style, and "written" by Lupano, this is an absolutely authentic graphic novel since it's completely text-free! In some two hundred pages, it tells the amusing and event-filled story of a European fisherman who sets out in his boat one day with a friend to bring in the morning's catch, and ends up instead being 'caught' by a giant factory ship and through one misfortune after another, winds up somehow transported across the Atlantic, to Cuba.

His intriguing wife has to determine what happened to him. His friend survived the collision and reported what little he knew: that her husband bravely (or foolishly!) refused to abandon ship! His wife becomes ever more heroic, while he becomes ever more plagued by problems, including an environmentally-minded seagull which he rescues from a six-pack plastic yoke.

The lack of text made this difficult to understand at times, but overall I enjoyed the story, and I recommend this as an entertaining non-read, so to speak!

The Animal Book by Steve Jenkins

Rating: WARTY!

This is an educational book about animals and the senses that they have at their command, which tend to put out own to shame, but I can't recommend it because it was so annoying to use unless all you ever want to do is to swipe from page one to the last page and back again. The page-swiping was a bit 'sticky' and slow, and there is no slide bar to rapidly move to different portions of the book.

The images are drawings which are in color but are nothing spectacular. No photographs here. There is a small paragraph of text to accompany each illustration. The book covers a bunch of different senses, fro example revealing that an octopus can taste you through its suckers! Yuk!

Other than that, it's not that great and I'd recommend looking at other options before considering this one, at least in ebook format.

Gina From Siberia by Jane Bernstein, Charlotte Glynn

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

A really short review for a really short book that's based on the author's own experience! It tells the story of a migration, but from the perspective of a wire-haired terrier. Gina is the unlikely name of the Russian dog who has to leave all of her friends behind and move to the USA, 5,681 miles away from her old home. Or maybe 5,682. They travel by bus, train, car, and plane. Gina isn't happy. She doesn't want to participate her new environment at all, but slowly, she decides it's not so bad.

This was a cute story for kids that may help them cope if they're moving themselves - even if it's just to the next town, or across the city. The text was nice reading and the illustrations are fun and colorful. I recommend it.

This Is a Taco! by Andrew Cangelose, Josh Shipley

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This short, illustrated story was hilarious. Told as a children's story about a perky and rebellious (and it must be said, slightly corpulent) little squirrel, it starts out innocently enough, introducing us to the squirrel and its habitat and foods, but as the descriptions are trotted out, the squirrel becomes more and more disappointed in its own story. "Wait I eat bark?" (or words to that effect) it complains at one point. Its preferred food is, of course, tacos, and who can argue with that? I can say without fear of common diction that some of the best squirrels I know are partial to tacos. They don't like the soft ones, only the hard ones. This completely explains corpulent squirrels.

Now you know those redheads are feisty (at least that's what every YA writer, and not a few grown-up writers, would have us believe), so it's not surprising that the story deteriorates further (for the squirrel, not for the reader!) when we learn that the hawk likes to prey on squirrels. I won't go into any more details otherwise I'll start laughing and won't be able to finish this review. Oh! Too late! I feel the titters and giggles coming on! if you can't find a laugh on the Internet, then Giggle it! Let me finish quickly by saying: this is hilarious and the work thinks marvelously outside the book. I fully recommend this for a highly amusing read.

Little Owl's Night by Divya Srinivasan

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a simple story, simply, but cutely illustrated in color, of the very charming little owl who starts the night flying around the countryside and greeting fellow animals as little owls are wont to do. It was a sweet and a speedy read for sending a child off to noddy-land, perhaps with dreams of themselves flying around the forest. There's no better way to put a child down for the night than by reading (or just telling) them a story which may in turn give them fun, imaginative, and sweet dreams, and this one is a worthy read. There's no better way to stimulate a child's imagination than to read to them, and no better thing you can do for a child's mind than to make it think outside the box.

Wnaethom Ni Ddim Rhoi'r Gorau Iddi by Richard Carlson

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a book that's currently free on barnes and Noble. The English title is We Didn't Give Up. It's described as a "Children's Picture Book" although the pictures are few, and are simple black and white line drawings that look more like chickens than ducks! That aside, the text is in English and then Welsh. There are other versions, such as Dutch, Haitian Creole, Italian, Spanish, Thai, and so on. The author also has other books created along these same lines, but this is the only one of his I've read.

The story tells of a mom and her three ducklings heading to the pond for a swim, being repeatedly interrupted by a very strong wind, but the mom and her ducklings do not give up and of course eventually are blown into oblivion. April Fool! I'm kidding, Of course they make it to the pond. I think this is a great idea for kids who want to learn English - or a second language, but there's no pronunciation guide given to the lingo either for the English version or the foreign (to me!) language version interspersed with it.

That said I still think it's a fun simple story that can help learn a new language and so I recommend it. Learning another language - and it doesn't matter which, or even if it's a computer language or music, which is another language, or math, which is yet another language - can really improve a child's mind and help them to think outside the box, so it's worth the effort.

The Ghost The Owl by Franco, Sara Richard

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a different kind of story, beautifully illustrated by Sara Richard in almost day-glo colors, with a swirling impressionistic style reminiscent in some parts, of van Gogh's rather impressionistic The Starry Night. Not that Van Gogh ever liked that painting! But let's not get too pretentious: the images were lovely and had an inherent ghostliness in them and still carried the dark threat of a deep night. If that's what the artist was aiming for, she nailed it!

The story is short (less than fifty pages), but it would have dragged had it been longer. It's just long enough. The animals see this young ghost wandering aimlessly through their forested, swampy world and discuss her raison d'être. The owl decides to do more than this, and it leads to an interesting tale since both the ghost and the owl have a backstory, and it seems that each one crosses paths with the other in interesting ways.

I really enjoyed the simplicity of the story which couches a slightly more complex tale within, and the whole thing comes together in finely-wrought style. It has ups and down, and not predictable ones either, and it has some great story-telling. I liked it a lot and I recommend it as a worthy read.

The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf

Rating: WORTHY!

This book was a bunch of bull - young bulls growing up with the idea of fighting in the bullring in Spain - except for Ferdinand that is, who much preferred to sit in the shade under a tree, enjoying the flowers. I must confess I was truly curious to see where the author took this and so I read on!

When the ring managers showed up to pick fresh young bulls to go up against the toreadors and matadors, all the bulls except Ferdinand played their game and were ready to run and fight. Ferdinand was under his tree, that is until something seriously disturbed him, and then the managers were very interested in how feisty he was, and took them with him. But in the ring, all Ferdinand wanted to do was to sit and enjoy the flowers tossed down into the ring by the spectators.

This was a fun and colorful book with a great ending, and a positive message. It's okay not to ask "How high?" when someone orders you to jump! It's okay to stop and smell the roses! I recommend it.