Reviews

Books Reviewed

Don’t miss some of the best children’s books of 2017.

Mighty, Mighty Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker

For ages 0-4

“At last—here from the team behind the beloved international bestseller comes a companion to Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site. All of our favorite trucks are back on the construction site—this time with a focus on team-building, friendship, and working together to make a big task seem small! Down in the big construction site, the crew faces their biggest job yet, and will need the help of new construction friends to get it done. Working as a team, there’s nothing they can’t do! The millions of fans of Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site are in for a mighty good time!” Amazon

“A hit with truck-loving preschoolers.” —School Library Journal

Place Value by David A. Adler

For ages 5-8

“You had better not monkey around when it comes to place value. The monkeys in this book can tell you why! As they bake the biggest banana cupcake ever, they need to get the amounts in the recipe correct. There’s a big difference between 216 eggs and 621 eggs. Place value is the key to keeping the numbers straight. Using humorous art, easy-to-follow charts and clear explanations, this book presents the basic facts about place value while inserting some amusing monkey business.” Scholastic

“Explaining something like place value can be dry, and some

passages here might be a tad too long, but Adler and Miller add just enough frosting to this math cupcake

to make it digestible. A useful addition to a public, school, or classroom library.” — Booklist

A Boy Called Bat by Elana K. Arnold

For ages 6-10

“For Bixby Alexander Tam (nicknamed Bat), life tends to be full of surprises—some of them good, some not so good. Today, though, is a good-surprise day. Bat’s mom, a veterinarian, has brought home a baby skunk, which she needs to take care of until she can hand him over to a wild-animal shelter.

But the minute Bat meets the kit, he knows they belong together. And he’s got one month to show his mom that a baby skunk might just make a pretty terrific pet.” Harper Collins.

“Brimming with quietly tender moments, subtle humor, and authentically rendered family dynamics, Arnold’s story, the first in a new series, offers a nonprescriptive and deeply heartfelt glimpse into the life of a boy on the autism spectrum.” — ALA Booklist

Big Nate: What’s a Little Noogie Between Friends by Lincoln Peirce

For ages 8-12

“Big Nate is in a class by himself. This feisty 11-year-old holds the school record for detentions, but that doesn’t stop him from dreaming big!

Nate Wright’s a winner–in his own mind, anyway. So when things go wrong, he’s at a loss to explain why. How does his soccer team manage to lose to a school with a sixty-game winless streak?  What’s he doing at the movies on a Friday night . . . with GINA? And why, oh why is one of his classmates (hint:  she’s Nate’s dream girl) suddenly moving 3,000 miles away?  It’s all enough to make a sixth-grade superstar feel . . . well, not so super.

But you can’t keep a good man down, and Nate’s still got pals like Teddy, Francis, and Chad to cheer him up. Sure, their methods aren’t always warm and fuzzy, but Nate doesn’t mind. After all, what’s a little noogie between friends?” Amazon

“It is because of Nate’s emotional reaction to all the things that do not go his way– and his resilience in the face of so many reversals– that Nate’s life is so much fun to explore, for readers if not necessarily for Nate himself.”  — InfoDad

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