Review: Jitterbug Jam

Jitterbug Jam by Barbara Jean Hicks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've never seen another book about a boy under a monster's bed. It may not be the best children's book, but there is no other in the niche, so I'm inclined to be content with what I've got. At least it teaches kids that most of the time what looks like a monster also deserves compassion. And compassion and tolerance are important lessons.

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Review: This and That

This and That by Julie Sykes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Four stars for This and That, which means that I realy liked it! The book is simple, easy to read, with repetitions (which is very important for kids), and gives a lot of topics to talk about. For example, for my son and me the book started a discussion and a week-long exploration of nest-building, the ways it can be done, and why animals need nests. Perfect.

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Review: The Martian

The Martian by Andy Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I find myself surprisingly attached to a format I first read a book in. So The Martian for me will be forever a Kindle book. But. A map, that wasn't in the Kindle edition, is a nice touch. It would spare me some intensive googling of Mars' geography.

Here is my review for the Kindle edition.

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Review: A Field Guide to Dragons, Trolls, and Other Dangerous Monsters

A Field Guide to Dragons, Trolls, and Other Dangerous Monsters by A.J. Sautter
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I wish there were a real guide to dragons and other monsters somewhere out there. The pictures here are nice, but the book is too thin to satisfy even a four-year-old. I would welcome a "guide-like" structure for a book like this, but here the attempts to scientific-looking descriptions are quite pitiful, unfortunately. Thus, our search for a good guide to dragons will continue.

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Crimson Spell, Vol. 5

Yayyyy! The last volume of Crimson Spell arrived! Let's see...

Best Science-Fiction and Fantasy Books 2015

Someone recommended me to read from the The Best Science-Fiction & Fantasy of 2015 list according to Barnes&Noble, so I took a look (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/25-of-the-best-sff-books-of-2015/). Well.... I didn't hear anything about most of the titles on the list, except for Uprooted, which is the best book of the year indeed. I wonder if the rest of the list is a case of "better a small fish than an empty dish". Anyway, I marked as to-read all of them with a rating on Goodreads 4 and above and/or a positive review from a friend. Which made my to-read shelve 185 books long. I doubt that I will make it to all the "best SciFi and Fantasy 2015" in 2016, but at least some of them will appear in my reviews soon.

Review: Blood Kiss

Blood Kiss by J.R. Ward
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I hate the format! And I hate that font! It's a shame our library bought only the paperback edition. But it's much more of a shame it exists. Those tiny, running-together letters are impossible to read. I also don't like the haste with which the book was made into page - apparently, there was no time for a proper proof-reading.

But still I did read the book. It's a decent installment in the series. If anyone tells you it's a spin-off, the start of a new series, Legacy instead of Brotherhood, don't believe it for a second. The "main" story here is too cliche to be exciting. The treat is the development of Butch and Marissa's relationship.

The good thing, it made me laugh a lot, though I'm sure it wasn't intended. But the description of terrible trials necessary for the admittance into the training program is way too funny. Maybe it's pardonable. What can you expect from a person who probably walks only to the car and back? But still, thinking that several (three or four, apparently) hours of walking can leave anyone dehydrated and fainting from exhaustion is hilarious. As is calling a winning woman a "Primus". Like really? Whatever language the author had in mind, "primus" is wrong in all of them.

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Review: Kobee Manatee: A Wild Weather Adventure

Kobee Manatee: A Wild Weather Adventure by Robert Scott Thayer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The synapsis claims that this "thrilling tale follows Kobee Manatee as he travels across the mighty Atlantic Ocean"... Here is where I went into a stupor. Why would a manatee possibly travel across the Atlantic? Good news, it doesn't. Kobee went from Florida to Bahamas, which hardly can be called "across the Atlantic". It's just the synopsis is really bad.

The forte of the book is illustrations. They are marvelous. Colorful, not too basic, not too detailed, just right for a young reader. Another good thing is accuracy: the content doesn't contradict scientific facts, to a point of course. The story itself though is a completely different story. It's not very exciting, not fully developed, intermittent with "Kobee's fun facts" that sometimes are necessary in the plot, and sometimes are not. It's more like a sketch of a story, for a storyteller to rely on, rather than to read. A bit of a rhythm (or better yet, rhyme) would save it I think. As it is it can't be directly read to kid.

In summary, I recomended the book to our local library. Manatees are not a common subject for a children book, and we certainly need more "unusual" subjects. A quick survey among my son's kindergarden classmates showed that not a single one of them know what a manatee is, which is sad. So combining manatees, weather, and ocean true facts in one colorful book goes a long way in terms of education.

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