Baby Penguins Everywhere - Review

Baby Penguins Everywhere! is about a lonely penguin. All of a sudden a hat floats by with a little surprise inside.

My favorite part of the story is when the first little penguin pops out of the hat. I like this book because I like penguins and this book is about them. See my penguin in the picture.

This book is a picture book, and even tough I am 10 I still enjoyed the book. I read it to my little brother and thought it was funny.

The part that made me laugh was when on the first page you could see the little hat behind an ice burg.

I cant wait to meet the author and illustrator, Melissa Guion, when she visits our local library in May.

Meeting Deborah Davis

Earlier this month I reviewed the book Speeding Down the Spiral. A few weeks later I went to the Glen Ridge Public Library to meet the author, Deborah Davis, for myself.

When I finally got to meet her and told her about my blog. She signed my copy of the book. 

Bookmarks

Do you have a favorite book mark? Well I do! Here are some of my favorites. 

Recently me and my sister entered a bookmark contest at my favorite local book store, Watchung Booksellers. This year's theme for the competition is: If you could go anywhere in your imagination, where would you go? 

Me and my sister knew right away what it would be. My sister wanted to go into the TV and meet bugs bunny. 

I wanted to go back in time to see what it was like. 

It might too late to enter now, but they have a contest every year with a different theme.

My Trip to the Guggenheim

After reviewing the book Speeding Down the Spiral: An Artful Adventure, I was inspired to go to the Guggenheim Museum for myself. I have been there before but this time I was looked more closely for the things in the book.

 

Outside of Guggenheim Museum 

When I was there I took a couple of pictures as well. You were only allowed to take pictures on the first floor though.

Window and art installation in Guggenheim

At the museum I saw some of the pictures from the book such as Women with Yellow Hair by Pablo Picasso and Still Life: Flask, Glass, and a Jug by Paul Cezanne.

Also at the Guggenheim if you wanted they would give you a headset to listen to some things about the art and a sketchpad draw to the art you see.

Art wall with Cray-pas

For more information about the Guggenheim Museum check out their website.

Speeding Down the Spiral Review

by Ava, 4th grade

Speeding Down the Spiral: An Artful Adventure by Deborah Goodman Davis Illustraed by Sophy Naess

This book is about Lizzie, her dad, and her brother’s visit to the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. It was summertime and Lizzie really wished they could be going to a water park instead. When her dad gets distracted Lizzie ends up chasing her brother down the spiral ramp that is in the middle of the museum.

My favorite part was when Ben, Lizzie’s little brother, falls into a big pile of black licorice.  

I like the book because it was funny. I also liked how it told me about some art pieces that are displayed in the Guggenheim. Not only do you see pictures of the art in the book but you learn a little bit about the things you see.

This is a picture book; it’s kind of short, but not too short.  I think this book is for younger kids but I am 10 and I liked it too. I even enjoyed reading it to my younger sister.

A part that made me laugh was when Ben flew across the opening of the spiral ramp. On that part I also felt like I was seeing through the main character’s eyes because I bet Lizzie was afraid her brother was going to fall down the middle of the spiral. That’s how I felt too.

You can read about my visit to the museum here. 

Next Month's Pick

Grace chose The One and Only Ivan for this month's read. She purchased it at her school's recent book fair and thought it would be a great choice for the group. 

Here is the Book's description from Amazon:

Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all.

Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he’s seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or the sound of leaves with color and a well-placed line.

Then he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from her family, and she makes Ivan see their home—and his own art—through new eyes. When Ruby arrives, change comes with her, and it’s up to Ivan to make it a change for the better.

Katherine Applegate blends humor and poignancy to create Ivan’s unforgettable first-person narration in a story of friendship, art, and hope.

Enjoy!

The Lemonade Crime Review

The Lemonade Crime is a continuation of the book The Lemonade War which our group read last month.  At the end of the first book in the series a crime takes place. Money was stolen from Evan who stole it from his sister who earned it selling lemonade. Evan's little sister Jessie is really mad because she worked really hard to get that money with her friend Meghan.

Jessie has a hunch of who took the money.  The suspect is Scott Spenser.  When the kids in school start talking about Scott's new X-Box 20/20 the siblings get mad. They are even more convinced it was him.  Jessie gets the idea to hold a trial to prove that Scott is the culprit. She organizes everything even the punishment. 

Ava really enjoyed the end of the book and how things were resolved. She was surprised at the verdict of the trial. The book didn't end how she thought and she liked that.
Grace really liked the part when the court was going on and everyone was all together on the playground and they were trying to figure out if Scott Spencer took the money or not.
Jordyn enjoyed the part when they were in line and Jessie accused Scott Spencer of taking Jessie's money. She was surprised the way Jessie spoke up to Scott because she was younger than him.
Copper's favorite part was when Jessie made Spenser sign the documents for the trial. It seemed funny for a little girl to be doing grown up things.

The ideas of kids running their own trial is unrealistic its likely that they would need adults to supervise.  but it was still neat to read about it.

Overall the girls preferred the first book in the series, The Lemonade War but would still recommend The Lemonade Crime to others,  and are even interested in reading the next book in the series The Bell Bandit as well as others in this series.

Both boys and girls will like this book because the main characters are a boy and girls. I think boys would like it because it has an X-Box in it and I know boys like X-Boxes. I also think girls would like it because a girl is one of the main character and the girl planned the trial.