A Rock is Lively

TITLE: A Rock is Lively
AUTHOR:  Dianna Hutts Aston
ILLUSTRATOR: Sylvia Long
PUBLISHER: Chronicle Books
COPYRIGHT:  2012

This nonfiction book about rocks is very interesting.  The reader will learn how rocks are made, the types of rocks and the many uses of rocks.  (I had not thought about just how useful rocks are!) 

This would be a great resource o use in a classroom to begin a study on the types of rocks.  This book is AR level 5.4.

One note:  There was a picture of the David sculpture at the end of this book; I think a teacher would need to be warned of this before reading it to the class.

Queen Emily's Enchanted Kingdom: Litterbug

TITLE:  Queen Emily's Enchanted Kingdom:  Litterbug
AUTHOR:  Lee-Ann Graff-Vinson
ILLUSTRATOR: Emily Vinson, Joely Hannah Casavant
PUBLISHER: Polliwog Press
COPYRIGHT:  2012

Big Ted tells Queen Emily that garbage is covering the Enchanted Kingdom. The people of the kingdom have not thrown away their trash and it is a huge mess. Queen Emily investigates and talks to Litterbug about the problem with throwing things out instead of putting them in the trash.

This is a nicely written and illustrated book. I did not like the mention of "casting a spell" on the people of the kingdom that caused them to not clean up.

Thank you to Great Minds Think Aloud Publishing for providing this ebook for my review.

Compost Stew

TITLE: Compost Stew An A-Z Recipe for the Earth
AUTHOR: Mary McKenna Siddals
ILLUSTRATOR: Ashley Wolff
PUBLISHER: Tricycle Press
COPYRIGHT: 2010

This book offers an A-Z list of items to use in your compost. It's poetic verse makes it fun to read aloud. The illustrations are amazing to me, and I appreciate the detail and colors on each page. This would be a wonderful addition to a classroom or school library as well as a unit on the environment.

My son and I found this to be a wonderful book to enjoy together.