4 stars Great adaptation of Baum’s fourth Oz book. It has been a while since I read the original, but from what I remember, this sticks closely to the original book with a few minor changes which are noted in the beginning of this book. I actually liked this version better than the original. I…

3 stars   A spooky mystery in a wax museum told in an easy-to-read chapter book for fans of Scooby and the gang. This book was well-written with good descriptions. The book also has a few illustrations throughout, which helps break up and enhance the text. A good mystery for kids to try to solve…

3 stars A cute book all about being itchy. I really liked the illustrations in this one. Each dinosaur is itchy for a different reason as shown in the pictures (tag on shirt, sunburn, bee sting, etc.). I enjoyed the detail in the illustrations. And they are hilarious so there is that. Overall, the story…

4 stars   This is actually a very good book adaptation of the Cars 3 movie. I am often disappointed with adaptations from movies because they have to be shortened so much and many times they don’t tell a story, they just introduce the characters or set up the story. This one perfectly sums up…

4 stars   This book is absolutely beautiful. I love the lyrical free-style writing. The imagery created in Copeland’s words is gorgeous. She invokes pictures of “a dreaming shooting star of a girl” and “wrap[ping] our hearts careful as ribbons on pointe shoes”. So beautiful. You can really envision what Copeland writes and it is…

2 stars This was an okay read. I think I was just too much in a rational mindset to enjoy this book. I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept that Stanley was flattened by a bulletin board while sleeping in the original book series. I can even pretend that you can send a flat…

3 stars A very amusing and entertaining read. This is the first Speed Bump & Slingshot Misadventure book I have read and I enjoyed it. I really liked the format of the book. It blends traditional block text with speech bubble dialogue. It is one step closer to full chapter books from Mo Willems books….

4 stars   Awesome, entertaining, rhyming book that goes through the alphabet and gives a description of a vehicle for each letter. I really liked that the book included well-known vehicles (car, fire truck, airplane) as well as lesser known ones (iceboat, dog sled, zeppelin). Very creative. I also like that the rhymes are set…

3 stars A good read for fans of superheroes. This book features members of the Justice League including Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Aquaman. They team up against Black Manta to save the day. Overall, a good action-packed read. The only problem I had with this book was the number of idioms and various…

1 star This book is just bad. For one thing, it has nothing to do with Halloween, despite the slightly punny title. In the book, Branch just lists some scary things (mostly things that tried to eat Poppy or succeeded in eating each other). There is no real story. Branch literally just tells you a…