All Hands On Deck
Lego City
Level Reader 1
Marilyn Easton (Author)
Kenny Kiernan (Illustrator)
Scholastic
ISBN 9780545331661
This book is set in a harbor and focuses around a bunch of the Lego sea craft. The story is about a surfer who gets into trouble and the coast guard must come to the rescue. Like most of the Lego City books, this one has bright vibrant colors. It's a story to help children develop their reading skills and is a fun story to be enjoyed by the whole family. I believe this is the first of the Lego City books by Easton and Kiernan and they have done a great job matching the look and feel of the series but having their own distinct contribution.
The Leveled readers are great books for young children. They are designed to progress as a child's reading improves. There are hundreds of titles in these formats, even across different publishers. What makes this particular series, The Lego City Adventures, so good, is that little kids will be attracted to them because of the format and style. These books are bright, vibrant, and colorful stories with fun illustrations. As a Level 1 reader geared for Kindergarten to Grade 1, this book is intended to help with sight word recognition, and sounding out simple words and sentences.
Other Scholastic Books:
Lego City Adventure Books:
Fire Truck To The Rescue
Help Is On the Way!
Calling All Cars
All Aboard!
Ready For Take Off
Build This City
City Adventures Sticker Book
Work This Farm
Fight This Fire!
Lego City Heroes!
Trucks Around The City
Escape From Lego City
3, 2, 1 Liftoff
All Hands On Deck
Fire In The Forest!
Catch That Crook!
Lego Star Wars Books:
Save The Galaxy!
Anakin: Space Pilot 3D
Darth Maul's Mission
The Padawan Menace
Lego Ninjago:
Collector's Sticker Book
Split! Splat!
Amy Gibson (Author)
Steve Bjorkman (Illustrator)
Scholastic
ISBN 9780439587532
This book is a lot of fun. My oldest daughter loved it from the second she saw it and wants it to rain so she can act it out. It is the wonderful playful story of playing in the rain First the sound of rain while inside, then the sound of rain outside, then splashing and playing in the mud, to the sun coming out and a muddy mess in the house. The illustrations are done in a water-color-like style with softer shades but bright colors. The full page illustrations are awesome and the way the words are integrated into the pictures in different ways and with different sizes is also fun. This book became an instant favorite in our home and I am sure it will in yours also.
Books Illustrated by Steve Bjorkman:
Santa Knows
Curiosity Killed The Cat
Sierra Harimann
Poison Apple Book 7
An Imprint of Scholastic
ISBN 9780545324878
This is book seven in this great series. It was the last I read as each story stands strong on its own. And this is one of the best of the lot. Sierra Harimann has written a wonderful, dark, ghost story. But it will be great fun for younger readers.
Hannah is not enjoying life right now. She is moving in with her dad, step-mom and step-sister. And their house backs onto the famous graveyard from the poem The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. The day before she moves in, her best friend tells her the town legend about a ghost cat. And the day of the move, Hannah's own cat goes missing. And soon she is being woken up by the cat at night. She catches glimpses of it and follows it to the graveyard but cannot find it. As she doubts herself, she doesn't tell her best friend, and soon realizes her step-sister knows more than she is letting on. But can she get her to work together, can they solve the mystery or are they headed to be the next victims of the ghost cat? Read this awesome story to find out!
This series has been out for a few years now. It is a dark off-shoot of their popular Candy Apple Books. This series, Poison Apple Books, is amazing. The books explore such things as ghosts, vampires, haunting and other darker tales. Unlike most fluffy books for young girls, these tales have a little more grit but still have some humour and are really fun reads. Unfortunately this series has either been canceled or put on hiatus. There appears to be a new spin-off called Rotten Apples that started this year and it looks really interesting. But even it is not getting much push or press from Scholastic.
Poison Apple Books:
The Dead End - Mimi McCoy
This Totally Bites! - Ruth Ames
Miss Fortune - Brandi Dougherty
Now You See Me - Jane B. Mason & Sarah Hines Stephens
Midnight Howl - Clare Hutton
Her Evil Twin - Mimi McCoy
Curiosity Killed the Cat - Sierra Harimann
At First Bite - Ruth Ames
Rotten Apple Books:
Mean Ghouls - Staci Deutsch
Zombie Dog - Clare Hutton
We Belong Together
Joyce Wan
Cartwheel Books an Imprint of
Scholastic
ISBN 9780545307406
This book is a little different from most board books, in that it starts on the front cover and continues right through to the back cover. It is a little book about us belonging together, like many examples of pairs from the book. Some of the pairings are milk and cookies, mittens, peanut butter and jelly, pencil and paper, bacon and eggs, fork and spoon. It is a great little book that children will ask to have read to them over and over again.
Books by Joyce Wan:
You Are My Cupcake
We Belong Together
Greetings From Kiwi and Pear
Unspoken
A Story From The Underground Railroad
Henry Cole
Scholastic
ISBN 9780545399975
There is a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. This book without text proves that. With incredible pencil illustrations the story is told of a young farm girl that discovers a runaway slave and helps in any small way that she can. Knowing these events took place again and again in history, and some not as successful as this, makes this a very moving book. It is incredibly powerful and touching. This book was written to honor a family's oral tradition of stories about the civil war and life in and around some of those events. It is a story told without words, and two characters that communicate and develop a bond without words. This book was incredible and one of my favorite books this year!
I have always loved books. Even when I was younger and could not read, I loved them. When my class mates could read circles around me before my dyslexia was diagnosed, I loved books. I love the look and feel and touch. I can remember being in school and waiting for the Scholastic flyer to come out. Then after my dyslexia was diagnosed and spending a summer in a special program to compensate for it, books were new worlds, and different places and different people I could visit. Some I visited again and again, some I lingered over and some I raced through. But that being said, my fondest memories from childhood are getting new books. And one of the reasons I love kids books now is I did not get to read them when a kid myself.
Over the last few years I have been reading and reviewing a lot of Scholastic books. In part because I have young children now and many of their books are geared for them. And also in part because they have so many amazing books and series, such as the Hunger Games, the 39 Clues, Poison Apple, the Underland Chronicles, the Guardians of Ga'Hoole, Wolves of the Beyond, Land of Elyon and more. In the last four years I have reviewed over 250 Scholastic books. So I am dedicating the month of September to Scholastic. Join the ride and read reviews from preschool to adult favorites and hop on the Scholastic September train.
All Hands On Deck
