One Chapter

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer

4.5 stars Fiction

You can always dream. Lucy started to escape into the world of books at a small age. She needed this escape as she had nothing in her own home life to hold onto. Jack Masterson provided the world into which Lucy would crawl into. Soon, these worlds that Jack had created would become a part of Lucy. As a reader, I think Lucy’s connection with Jack and her escape resonates with many of us. The amazement and freedom to escape into the pages of a great book and leave our current world beyond, even for just a few moments, is priceless.

As a teacher’s aide, Lucy is drawn to a student in her classroom Christopher, who is in foster care. Lucy feels a connection with Christopher and this connection deepens throughout the year. Lucy would like to adopt Christopher, but her current situation is not ideal. Lucy heart is in the right place as she tries to find a solution to this problem, but her frustration grows. It’s an emotional story as Christopher and Lucy both struggle with the way life is and how they want it to be. Lucy introduces Christopher to the Jack Masterson books that she loved growing up and soon, they share this reading experience together.

Getting an invitation in the mail, Lucy is invited to a contest hosted by Jack Masterson. This could be Lucy’s “golden ticket,” her chance to change the current situation. Will it be enough to change Christopher’s life also? Will Lucy be the winner?

I enjoyed the contest hosted by Jack. It wasn’t a one chance winner but multiple chances so everyone who was invited got a chance to win points and be the winner at the end of the contest. This was a page-turner and one that touched my heart as I was drawn into the contest and the lives of Lucy and Christopher.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book to me.

Where to Hide a Star by Oliver Jeffers

4.5 stars Children’s Picture Book

With unique ideas and fun illustrations, Oliver Jeffers is one of my favorites. This is a cute story about a boy who plays hide-and-seek with his friends, Star and Penguin. Just like every other day, the boy does the counting while Star and Penguin hide. It was their routine: day after day, the same plan, and the same hiding spots. Penguin decides one day to hide extra well, and the game has changed.

Tending to Penguin, the boy forgot about Star until he is missing. Penguin and the boy set off to find him. Searching everywhere, they cannot find him, so the boy asks the Martian for help.

The boy knows that The Martian knows more about Stars than he does. Meanwhile, we see where Star is, and I wonder how they will ever find him.

Jeffers does it again with a fun entertaining story. Looking outside at night, I wonder……. 4.5 star

The Froggies Do NOT Want to Sleep by Adam Gustavson

5 stars Children’s Picture Book

How funny! The frogs don’t want to sleep as they’re too busy hopping, practicing their accordions, riding unicycles, dressing up, taming ferocious beasts, and numerous other things.

I loved the vocabulary in this book – not too large but enough to spark the minds of the young children reading this book. “Tame ferocious beasties, jousting like knights, zipping through galaxies, fizzy soda, alien life-forms, jelly-headed, pillowy-clouds,” see, just reading those words makes you want to read this book.

Now for the illustrations, they’re adorable and full of life. With colors that pop, the frogs are full of energy moving from activity-to-activity until they just can’t keep their eyes open. 5 stars

Found by Salina Yoon

5 stars Children’s Picture Book

Such a cute book! I loved the bright illustrations and the simple text. I fell in love with Bear and his connection with Bunny.

Bear was in the forest, and he discovered a stuffed rabbit under a tree. He immediately falls in love with it and “gently carries the toy Bunny home.”

Thinking the Bunny is sad, he makes some Found signs and puts them up everywhere. Bear believes that the Bunny misses his home.

Bear starts searching for the Bunny’s owner, but he can’t find anyone who is missing him. Bear feels sorry for Bunny, but he also wishes that he could keep him.

While out with Bunny the next day, they find Bunny’s owner. What a relief. Or is it?

The ending is sweet and well; the illustrations are super!! 5 stars

Piggle the Pig: the Perfect Pigsty by Dudolf

4 stars Children’s Picture Book

Piggle gets a phone call and it’s his parents. They’re coming for a visit!! He has to get this house ready.

This means making it even more messy than it usually is. Will his parents be happy with how he has his house? Is it messy enough?

Illustrations do an excellent job telling the story. Cute book. 4 stars

The Bear Out There by Jess Hannigan

4 stars Children’s Picture Book

Is there or is there not a bear? Talking to the reader directly, the girl is convinced there is a bear outside her door. Trying to prepare her readers, she is excited about what is happening outside her door.

Yet, when someone comes rattling her doorknob, guess who wants to answer the door? Yes, the girl! Did she forget about the bear? The ending was cute and I loved the tie-in with the story we all know. 4 stars

If You Give a Dog a Donut by Laura Numeroff

5 stars Children’s Picture Book

The books in this series are so cute. I think kids love how they go on forever until they loop around to the beginning again. The dog in this story is cute and of course, who doesn’t like donuts.

So, give the dog a donut and of course, he’s going to need something to drink. He loves the juice so much, he needs more but of course, you have no more, so he’ll make his own. Throwing the apples from the tree, the dog is reminded how much he likes to play baseball and of course, he wants to play baseball! Playing baseball involves a lot of equipment and dog is such a great player, that a celebration is in store when they are finished this celebration creates more fun, and they go on an adventure with a treasure hunt and kite flying. Did I mention a kite? Yup, a kite which so happens to get caught in a tree. What kind of tree? Yup…. you got it and now….we shall start dog all over again on this wonderful story.

Cute, fun-filled illustrations that complement the storyline. I love the little boy who is trying to keep up with the dog in the story as he runs about making the dog happy. The colors are a nice shade of brightness, and the shapes are simple within the illustrations so not to take away from the text. A fun and adventurous story that everyone will enjoy. 5 stars.

If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff

5 stars Children’s Picture Book

You start with one pancake with sticky syrup and a pig….yes, a pig who doesn’t want to be sticky. To solve this, the pig takes a bubble bath with a rubber duck. Oh, a duck, that little duck brings back memories to the pig who now gets homesick and off you go! The pig wants to go on a trip to the farm where she was raised. Pig now has to get ready to go to the farm and that is an ordeal involving clothes, dancing, photos, and treehouse building. So many activities to get ready to go!! Has pig started on her trip to the farm yet? No, but now she’s feeling sticky again and you know what that means. Pig wants another pancake …….and you know what that means….. start reading this story over again.

A fun and lively story that will leave you smiling. The little girl is cute that is trying to keep up with the pig throughout the story, running and cleaning up and assisting the pig wherever she can. The pages are busy, yet the shapes are simple so not to take-away from the text on the pages. I love the colors used on the pages as they’re a toned-down shade of brightness.

The Tenant by Freida McFadden

5 stars Thriller

Ha! That was definitely a great read for me! Talk about some twists and turns. I’ve enjoyed Freida’s books in the past but the way that she’s able to spring her twists and turns in her stories are grabbing me in awe. I knew something had to be coming my way as I was reading but I was not ready for the deer-in-the-headlight stop I got. Unscrambling everything that I knew at that point was a process, a process that thanks to Freida was just the beginning of this rollercoaster of a book.

Blake was living the dream. He had a nice job, a girl on his shoulder, and he was trying to get his cards all aligned for the life that he wanted to lead. He could see his future unfolding in front of him, a prosperous future, one that could lead to many possibilities. It happened suddenly. Doors started slamming and Blake’s prosperous land of opportunity was now being taken away from him. Why? Blake didn’t know but he was trying desperately to hold onto every last bit of what was left. It was a downhill spiral and Blake is tumbling hard. To help financially, Blake and his fiancé decide to open their home to a tenant, someone who could help take part of the burden off temporarily. Whitney seemed to be the perfect fit for their household, sweet young Whitney.

I could feel the tension and stress as they all adjusted to this new living arrangement. Blake thought he had problems before, but now with Whitney in the mix, they’ve just complicated things. Whitney arrives with her own stories and history, and boy, does she shake things up! Don’t start thinking that you can put this book aside or concentrate on your own issues once Whitney joins the household. The escapades and finger-pointing intensify, and I could think of nothing less than the characters inside this book and the who and why associated with that.

I liked how I started to question my own thought process and how I began to wonder where the holes in this story lived. Were the characters’ actions and words matching up? Had I overlooked something? Was I rooting for someone I shouldn’t be? This was a fun, twisted book which I really enjoyed. Wowza – a 5 star read for me, for sure.

You Wouldn’t Want to Live Without Poop! by Alex Woolf

5 stars Children’s Nonfiction

Poop! Yes, poop. A book centered around poop. It is more important than you think and now, we can read about its importance, the history of poop, and why you can’t live without it. A nonfiction children’s book, I guarantee that you will learn something about poop before you get done reading it.

There are a dozen chapters in this book, an introduction, a glossary, and an index so this book can be used as a reference tool also. The last few pages of the book are full of fun interesting facts which along with the rest of the book make for some interesting reading. Let me entice you with some interesting facts: elephant poop is often used to fill up holes in the game reserve in South Africa, there is a dog park in Massachusetts that fuels their park’s street lamps with dog’s poop so don’t carry your dog’s poo out, dump into the convertor so you can see on your way home. Guess how many rabbit pellets a rabbit can poop in just 1 day? 500!

Now that I got you intrigued, this is just a bit of the fun and interesting information that is inside this book. You’ll learn what human and animal poop is, the hazards of poop, how the world uses it, and what we poop teaches us. Do you ever wonder, what happens to all the poo when individuals go to the bathroom? Does it go in space? Down inside the ocean or what? The answers are inside this book. The answers are not lengthy, and the author doesn’t use difficult terminology, yet this is not a book for preschool children. I think this is a good fit book for mature readers who have inquiring minds from the grade school level and up. The illustrations inside the book range from detailed drawings to cartoons explaining the text.