Title: And Then There Were Gnomes (Guinea Pig, Pet Shop Private Eye)
Author: Colleen AF Venable
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Publish Date: August 2010
ISBN: 0761354808
Bethany's Rating:1/5
Summary: A mystery of a ghost in the pet shop drives Hamisher to get Sasspants to solve a mystery of the ghost in the pet shop. While Sasspants is trying to figure out if there is a ghost in the pet shop mice start going missing. Everyone thinks its the ghost taking the mice but Sasspants thinks that it is Hamisher playing a prank on him. In the end Sasspants solves the mystery and finds out that the cold air the other animals thought was a ghost is really a air conditioner and the mice have been sneaking away to go next door to the ice cream store.
Evaluation: I thought the pictures were very cute but the story was confusing and a little hard to follow. Sometimes I was not sure which way the blocks where supposed to be read. The story also seemed to drag on a little bit.
Title: Baby Mouse Queen Of The World
Author: Jennifer L. Holm
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Publish Date: December 2007
ISBN: 0375832297
Bethany's Rating:5/5
Summary: This is a story of a little mouse named Babymouse. She wants to be popular and apart of the cool kid crowd. Babymouse sees everything in her life as bad and wants to change it all. Felicia the most popular mouse has a sleepover and is inviting everyone but Babymouse. Babymouse convinces Felicia to let her come to the sleep over. The sleep over goes bad and Babymouse leaves early. She goes to her friends house and watches a movie instead. Babymouse realizes in the end how good she has it and she would not want it any other way.
Evaluation: This story was a graphic novel that only used the colors pink, white, and black. I liked the lesson that this story told. I think it is an important one especially for middle school students. In middle school children are trying to figure out who they are and I feel like this book shows kids that they should not try to be trying to join a popular friend group just for the status but they should be true to themselves and appreciate their friends.
Title: Baby Mouse Monster Mash
Author: Jennifer L. Holm
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Publish Date: August 2008
ISBN: 0375843876
Bethany's Rating:5/5
Summary: This book is about a mouse named Babymouse. She wants to be friends with all of the cool mice in school. Babymouse's mom tells her she can have a party for holloween. She invites Felicia the most popular mouse in school to her party. Felicia and her friends tell Babymouse that she has to dress a certain way and when they go out trick or treating they start making Babymouse do things that she does not want to do like egg someone's house and steal candy from children. Babymouse realizes that she does not want to be with them anymore so she goes back to her house and changes into her original costume and when Felicia comes over Babymouse tells her that she needs to leave and Babymouse spends the night watching movies with her friend.
Evaluation: I enjoyed this story. I think it shows a good lesson to show children to stay true to themselves. The story is a graphic novel and does show Babymouses imagination going wild throughout the story which I found interesting and I think I would keep a child interested in the story but I personally felt like I wanted to skip past some of the imagination parts and get back to the story. I like the use of color because the whole book was black, white, and orange.
Title: Masks (Everything On it)
Author: Shel Silverstein
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publish Date: January 2011
ISBN: 0061998168
Bethany's Rating:5/5
Summary: This is a poem about a girl and a boy who always put on a mask to cover their blue skin. They searched their whole lives looking for someone with blue skin with but because they where both hiding their blue they walked by each other and never knew.
Evaluation: I absolutely love this poem. I read this poem as a child and like referring back to it every once in a while. I think that it is simple but teaches a very important lesson that you need to show who you really are and do not try to be like someone else. So children will know to be true to themselves.The poem also show the reader that they are not alone. There will always be people who are interested in the same things as you but if you hid it then you will never find them.
Title: Scale (Falling Up)
Author: Shel Silverstein
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publish Date: January 2006
ISBN: 0060248025
Bethany's Rating:5/5
Summary: This poem is about a guy who is on a scale but cannot see what the scale says because his stomach is in the way.
Evaluation: I really liked this poem. I remembered reading this as a kid and then going on a scale and sticking on stomach out so that I could not see what the weight said like the person in the poem. I think it is a simple poem to understand.
Title: Love (Book: Where The Side Walk Ends)
Author: Shel Silverstein
Publisher: HarperCollins; 1st edition
Publish Date: January 2015
ISBN: 0060256672
Bethany's Rating:3/5
Summary: This is a poem where each child was a letter of the word love. The only child that could come was the child holding the V.
Evaluation: I think this is a cute short poem. It shows the child how to spell love.
Title: A Fine Desert
Author: Emily Jenkins
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Publish Date: January 2015
ISBN: 0375868321
Bethany's Rating:5/5
Summary: This story shows 4 different centuries in 4 different locations all making the same recipe. The first is Lyme, England, 1710, is this era we get to see a little white girl with her Mom. The little girl has to pick the berries, milk the cow and get the cream from the top of the milk and whisk the cream for 15 minutes, she drew water from the well, Smashed the berries, chilled the mixture in the ice pit and then served it after dinner that night. The next family lived in Charleston, South Carolina, 1810. This was an African American family who were servants in the south. They picked berries from the garden, had the cream delivered by the dairy and the little girl whisked the cream for 10 minutes, then she washed the berries in the well, smashed the berries and put the mixture in an ice box till dinner. Then she served it to the master and his family. The next family was from Boston, Massachusetts, 1910. This little girl went to the market bough berries, had cream delivered to their home , and the girl whisked the cream for 5 minuets, she washed the berries in the sink from the faucet, smashed the berries then put the berries in an ice box, after dinner they her family ate the desert. The last family lived in San Diego, California in the current year. This family is a little boy and his dad. They go to the store buy berries and cream, go home and the Dad searches the internet for a recipe. The little boy uses an electric mixer and whisks the cream for 2 minuets, he washes the berries in the sink and then uses a food processor to mash the berries and he puts the mixture in the refrigerator. They serve it after a dinner party with many friend from many different cultures with many different ethnicities.
Evaluation: This was my favorite of the three historical fictions books that I read for this blog. The author told exactly was century is was and where in the U.S. is was. She took into account all of the different tools that they would have used in that time period and used the language of what the tools would have been called and even showed an enlarged version of it. I even liked how the author showed that today we are living in world were the boys can do that the cooking and dads can help out were in the past that would have been apropos and I really liked how the author showed the mixed ethnicities in the end showing the mixing pot that America is. I liked how she connected it through the years showing that even though times have changed and how we cook has changed the whole concept of family togetherness is still there with families cooking together and eating together.
