children’s books

Picture Book Review: Narwhal and Jelly

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Peanut Butter and Jelly by Ben Clanton
Peanut Butter and Jelly (A Narwhal and Jelly Book #3) 
by Ben Clanton (Goodreads Author)

5 out of 5 stars


The cuteness!! The adorableness!! The sillyness! I can’t get enough of Narwhal and Jelly. They are so cute and lovable! Narwhal has some strange eating habits, so Jelly tries to help him broaden his culinary comfort zone with hilarious results.

Each little comic is so delightfully funny! I laughed my head off, and smiled and chuckled with glee. I love the simple yet striking illustrations, and the bright colors. I love the sweetly imaginative dialogue and storylines.

I can imagine reading this aloud to a child and having so much fun together! Continue reading →

Book Review: Pinocchio

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The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
The Adventures of Pinocchio 
by Carlo Collodi

1 out of 5 stars

This is NOT Disney’s Pinocchio. It’s all violence, disaster, cut-throat assassins, hangings, imprisonment, thieves, bullies, greed, murder, more violence, and one ungrateful little puppet. Pinocchio really is a heartless scoundrel. He steals and lies and cheats, and then cries “Woe is me!” when someone steals from him, or lies to him, or cheats him. Well, you got what you deserved, puppet! Continue reading →

Book Review: Alanna: The First Adventure

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Alanna by Tamora Pierce
Alanna: The First Adventure (Song of the Lioness, #1) 
by Tamora Pierce (Goodreads Author)

3.5 out of 5 stars

Alanna switches places with her twin brother, so that he can study magic with the priests and become a sorcerer, and Alanna can study to become a knight in the royal palace.  She pretends to be a boy, and joins the pages in the palace. She learns to fight and begins to control her magical abilities. But it’s difficult keeping her biggest secret, her true gender, from all the boys around her!

I really enjoyed this book, and I read it in one sitting! Couldn’t put it down. The writing style has a few flaws, but the memorable characters and fascinating plot make up for it. A few trite “fairy tale” sort of things pop up (King of Thieves, a horse named Moonlight, a sword named Lightning), but I like them anyway. Not exactly original sometimes, but the oldies are the goodies. Continue reading →

Book Review: The Haunting of Granite Falls

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The Haunting of Granite Falls by Eva Ibbotson
The Haunting of Granite Falls 
by Eva Ibbotson, Kevin Hawkes (Illustrations)

4 out of 5 stars on GoodReads


Young Alex, the laird of Carra, is forced to sell his ancient and dilapidated Scottish castle to an American millionaire. Poor Alex is heartbroken to be leaving his ancestral home, but worst of all is the parting with his ghostly friends who haunt the Castle of Carra. When the millionaire tears down the castle and transplants it in Texas where his ailing daughter, Helen, can enjoy it, the ghosts accompany the ancient stones of their home, and uncover an evil plot to kidnap Helen. The good ghosts befriend a mysterious phantom hand, and rely on Alex to help save poor Helen from her kidnappers!

This has all the charm and silliness that I’ve come to love in Ibbotson’s books! The writing is fresh with a whimsical story-telling style. I love how weird and wacky the characters are, and how every detail about them carries weight in the story. The plot is full of preposterous surprises and plenty of action.

One of the best things about Ibbotson’s writing is how she takes ordinary things and turns them upside down to the astonishment of the reader.

Book Review: Strawberry Girl

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Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski
Strawberry Girl 
by Lois Lenski

3 out of 5 stars on GoodReads

I liked this book about a family who moves to a new farm in Florida, during the pioneer days, determined to make the farm a success with a beautiful orchard and strawberry grove.
Birdie is excited to become a Strawberry Girl, but is worried that the disgruntled neighbors will make trouble for her family. When the neighbor’s pigs and cows trample over the new strawberry plants, Birdie’s father is outraged and vows to fence in his property to keep them out. This begins a feud between the two farmers, but the farmer’s children are eager to make friends. Only Birdie and her forgiving mother can make peace between the warring neighbors, and make both farms a success! Continue reading →

Book Review: Martin’s Mice

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Martin's Mice by Dick King-Smith
Martin’s Mice 
by Dick King-Smith

4 out of 5 stars on GoodReads

This adorable story follows Martin, a farmyard cat who doesn’t want to eat mice. Instead, Martin begins keeping a pet mouse confined in a bathtub, until he learns just how awful it is to imprisoned as a pet.

I loved the delightful writing style with all the humor and silly situations that Martin goes through. Poor Martin is quite clueless when it comes to the workings of a farm, and forgets the proper place of each animal. This leads to a lot of ridiculously funny dialogue with various farm animals.
This would be a wonderful book to read aloud, with different voices for the cows, sheep, pigs, and ducks all around the farm.
I found the plot to be interesting and surprising, despite its simplicity and straightforward story-telling style. A very enjoyable read!

Book Review: Emily and the Spellstone

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Emily and the Spellstone by Michael Rubens
Emily and the Spellstone 
by Michael Rubens (Goodreads Author)

4 out of 5 stars on GoodReads

Emily hates adventures, but when she discovers a magical stone that acts as a cellphone, she is thrown into a magical adventure that proves she is strong and resourceful against the greatest of enemies. A fiery monster named Gorgo is trapped in the Spellstone, and vows to eat Emily if he ever gets free. But Emily needs his help to defeat the nasty people who are seeking the stone’s power for their own evil purposes.

I loved the wit and humor of this book! The dialogue is snappy and every new magical situation is hilariously weird. The plot is full of action and danger. The characters are beautifully written with plenty of contrast and development. Continue reading →

Book Review: Marvelous Land of Oz

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The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum
The Marvelous Land of Oz (Oz, #2) 
by L. Frank Baum

2 out of 5 stars on GoodREads
 Tip is a young boy living in Oz, servant to a nasty witch. He fashions a pumpkin head that comes to life, and they travel to the Emerald City to meet the Scarecrow and Tin Man, falling into the middle of a revolution along the way.
I didn’t really enjoy this book, maybe because I listened to it as an audiobook, and I didn’t like the narrator. Usually I love the Oz books, but this one fell flat. The characters are so dry, the jokes aren’t funny, and even the imaginative setting of Oz felt like a rehash of the same old things from every Oz book. Maybe it was the narrator. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for this book. Maybe because I’ve been reading the Oz books out of order, so I already knew some of the plot points. It’s a good story, but I somehow couldn’t enjoy reading it.

Book Review: Frightful’s Mountain

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Frightful's Mountain by Jean Craighead George
Frightful’s Mountain (Mountain, #3) 
by Jean Craighead George

3 out of 5 stars


This is my least favorite book in the trilogy, because it mainly focuses on the peregrine falcon, Frightful, and Sam is barely in the story at all. If you are interested in falconry at all, you would LOVE this book! Very informative and dramatic, as Frightful learns to survive in the wild, struggles to find a mate and raise her own chicks, and finds her way back to Sam as a wild bird.
Continue reading →

Book Review: Midwinter Nightingale

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Midwinter Nightingale by Joan Aiken
Midwinter Nightingale (The Wolves Chronicles, #10) 
by Joan Aiken

3 out of 5 stars on GoodReads


Within hours of returning to England, Dido is kidnapped and interrogated regarding the whereabouts of the missing King Richard and his successor, Simon, Duke of Battersea. Dido has no idea where they are hiding, but she could never betray the good King and her kind friend Simon, so she turns her attention to escaping the fearful Fogrum Hall and the ghastly werewolf, Baron Magnus. Continue reading →