Roller Girl

Author/Illustrator: Victoria Jamieson 

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Grade Level: K-4

Award: Newbery Award 

This book is about a little girl and her best friend. Her mother takes her to the roller derby one time and thats when she decides that she wants to be a roller derby girl someday. She signs up for summer camp thinking that her friend will also sign up since they are best friends and do everything together. Instead her friend Nicole signs up for dance camp and she starts to make different friends. Astrid makes new friends and eventually learns how to skate and ends up growing so much this summer she thought was going to be horrible. 

This book is a good book to teach a lesson about change. It can help students identify with change in their lives and being okay with growth. It also teaches us that we all have different interests and that doesn't mean we can't be friends with those who don't share the same interests as us.

This is a graphic novel. It looks like a comic book style. It is very colorful and very fun. The text is in speech bubbles and the font is very comic book like. 

Millions of Cats

Author/Illustrator: Wanda Ga'g

Genre: Fantasy

Grade level: K-2

Awards: Newbery Medal 

There once was a very old couple that lived in a nice clean home. The old man wanted a fluffy little cat. The old man said he will get her a cat. He set out to look for one. He came to a hill and saw cats everywhere. He chose the prettiest cat and started to leave but then he saw another one and liked that one as well. He took all the ones he kept seeing and thought it was more beautiful than the last. He brought so many cats back home with him. Each cat took a sip of water and the whole pond was gone. They were hungry as well and each cat ate a mouthful of grass and nothing was left. The old woman saw all the cats coming and she was shocked because she only wanted 1 cat. They let the cats decide which one to keep. Each cat started to fight because they all thought they were prettier than the last. They all ran away and they found a little poor kitten scared and skinny. They kept the kitten that was not the prettiest but they loved it and thought she was the most beautiful one after all. 

This book is a great story. It can be used to teach may valuable lessons to children. In it they talk about big numbers so this could be used in a math lesson referring to big numbers. It can also be used to teach children to be humble as well as how only basing things off of the way people look is not good as well. 

The illustrations are very interesting. The cover is orange, black and yellow, which are pretty odd colors together. The inside pictures are in ink and in black and white. It is a really cool feel to the book making it seem almost vintage. 

Last Stop On Market Street

Author: Matt de la Pena 

Illustrator: Christian Robinson
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Grade level: K-2
Awards: Newberry Medal, Caldecott Honor

A little boy named CJ walks out of the church and feels the rain on his face. He ducked underneath his Nana's umbrella and asked why they had to wait for the bus when it was this wet. From the bus stop he watched his friends going away in cars and asked his nana why they didn't have a car. Nana said they didn't need a car they had a bus that breathed fire. The bus driver did a magic trick when CJ entered. They sat at the front of the bus and greeted everyone with a big smile. CJ seems to want everything that everyone else has. Nana told CJ to close his eyes and realize that he had everything live. He spotted the familiar faces and was grateful they came to the soup kitchen.

This book is a wonderful book to teach about humility. It teaches kids about being grateful for what they have. It also give perspective on what it would be like to be a child from a lower class family.

The illustrations are beautiful and fill up the whole page with lots of colors. They are cut and pated on like collages style. It is simple but very detailed. It portrays the characters well to tell us that they are poor and in the end of the book it is apparent that they are going to a soup kitchen to get their food.