Alte Zachen / Old Things
by Ziggy Hanaor, Benjamin Phillips (Illustrator)

3 out of 5 stars

Benji and his grandmother go on a grocery shopping trip around the city, but many of the old stores that Bubbe used to know are closed or moved, and she gets confused. She remembers the old days when she was young. She has trouble adjusting to the modern world, lost in her memories of the old ways.

P Is for Purr
by Carole Gerber, Susanna Covelli (Illustrations)

5 out of 5 stars

Each letter of the alphabet tells us something about cats, the different breeds, their habits, and their abilities. A is for American shorthair. B is for Breed. C is for claws. It goes all the way to X is for Xanthus Av Jostedalsbreen, a Norwegian Forest breed. Y is for Yankee cat, a Maine coon. Z is for Zibeline, also called a Burmese cat.

Christmas Fairies for Ouma
by Lindsey McDivitt (Goodreads Author), Katarzyna Bukiert (Illustrations)

4 out of 5 stars

A little girl draws fairies on a postcard and mails it to her grandmother in Cape Town, South Africa. But without an address, with no proper name, and with no stamps, how will the postcard ever reach her Ouma? The Christmas fairies that are sketched onto the postcard charm the postal workers and they send it on to the next postal station until it finally arrives in Cape Town. The wind blows the postcard down the street and right into the hands of Ouma!

Animals Illustrated: Ringed Seals
by William Flaherty, Sara Otterstatter (Illustrator )

5 out of 5 stars

This book contains interesting information about ringed seals, their habitat, their hunting, and their young pups. There are two to three paragraphs of information in each section, giving tidbits of information like how the seals have a layer of blubber fat that keeps them warm. Seals are intelligent and good at swimming away from predators like polar bears. They have strong claws on their front flippers for digging their way out of the ice. There is even a section about how Inuit tribes will use seal meat for food and make sealskin boots.

Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rules!
by E.E. Charlton-Trujillo (Author), Pat Zietlow Miller ( Author), Joe Cepeda (Illustrator)

Lupe Lopez is a rock star! …in her imagination. She drums with her pencils on everything in the classroom, making lots of noise. When the teacher insists that Lupe must follow the rules, Lupe comes up with her own rock star rules and ignores the teacher. She gets into trouble and realizes that maybe even rock stars have to follow the rules.

This is such a cute book! I love how Lupe slowly begins to realize that the rules are important, and she learns that having friends is better than having fans. Lupe has a lot of energy, and she learns to direct that energy into good things within the limits of the rules.