Aliera does not have any friends at school. The only place she fits in is at at the gym where she is a fencing champ. One day at school, Aliera gets paired up with Avery, the new popular boy in town to do a science lab. Aliera starts to like Avery and he ends up asking her out on a date. The stor...
Little dinosaurs are sometimes naughty, but they are also often quite sweet. Dinosaurs know just how to let their parents know they love them.This was a sweet selection in this series. It had more of the same, things that naughty dinosaurs do and the preferable things that good dinosaurs do, bu...
Yolen, J. &Teague, M. (2009). How do dinosaurs say I love you? New York: Scholastic, The Blue Sky Press. Picture book SoakPublic LibraryWho does not love dinosaurs? The dinosaurs in this picture book are given human-like qualities and go through the day like any child would. This is a simple read...
I really liked this book. It is a fun book to read because it is different then all the other I love you books. This book talks about a dinosaur that does all these bad things like flooding the bathroom beacuse it was playing in the sink but no matter what he does his parents still love him. I th...
I actually read this series when I was a kid, and decided to reread it before suggesting it to the girl I nanny for. I quickly found myself engrossed once again with Jakkin and his adventure to steal an dragon egg and train his own dragon. Jakkin is a wonderful character, set apart from the other...
I really enjoyed the fickle and fine way this book meandered betwixt plots and plans as well as between the mortal iron realm (us) and the Fae's realm. Except the Queen refers to the fact that any Fae could mingle sexually with mortals except the queen. Though for one reason or another it gets in...
Two fairies find out that the Queen has had an affair with a mortal. They are banished to live mortal lives in modern times. Or is it a punishment at all? The two sisters are first only charming in their love and loyalty for one another. But by living in the mortal world they learn love, frie...
The artwork is very pretty. The story is remarkably meh. I'd still give it three stars, but there's a disconnect between the artwork and the story that I can't quite get past. The female lead is written as a child, with a child's doubts and a child's way of thinking. She is drawn as a sexy, sexy ...
This book was such a fun and charming read! A twist on the tale of sleeping beauty it follows the narrator Gorse's life as she saves a prince and a troll herd, accidentally curses a princess and falls in love with the prince she saved. This book was so refreshing and from the minute I picked it u...
My five-year-old son picked this book out from the library last week. You would think that with Jane Yolen writing about dragons you couldn't go too far wrong. And you'd be right. This is a good book about dragons, but not quite my favorite. It did remind me strongly of the dinosaur books, whi...
This book affirms that princesses can be anything and do anything. It's not always about pink ruffles and tea parties. Like most little girls, my preschooler is pretty obsessed with princesses and she does love pink. She also loves to play ninjas and other things with her big brother. This is...
2. Elsie’s Bird: When I was younger, I was so nervous about going to camp. I was adamant about not going. To my disappointment, my parents made me go…and I am so thankful they did! There are many times in life when we have to do things that we don’t want to, but when all is said and done, we a...
A very sweet picture book that shows that overreaction, anger, and acting out are not good ways to handle anger. Things like kicking chairs, yelling, sticking tongues out are not helpful--they are mean. It also aims to teach children that parents love you, no matter how angry you get. This is a g...
This book probably has some of the funniest illustrations I've seen in a children's picture book. I may have found them more funny than my daughter did. This book shows dinosaurs (huge, HUGE dinosaurs) throwing tantrums in various household situations. That might sound off-putting at first, bu...
They behave like good little dinosaurs and they get ready for Santa nice and early.The book is a sweet and engaging and it has dinosaurs, what more would a young reader want. The book is fun and a perfect read for the upcoming holiday season.The pictures are great they are big and bright and the ...
Not bad, but not great. It was fun, but then the ending seemed to turn slightly towards behavioral. The rhyming moves along well, until the end. But in spite the flaws at the end. I think kids will get it all. Great for toddlers as well as preschoolers. I could have them stand with me and do some...
Poems reflecting the inner thoughts of famous fairy tale characters. I was thinking it would be fun to read these aloud to my students without giving them the name of the poem and see if they can use the context clues to figure out which fairy tale character is speaking. The illustrations are qui...
Little dinosaurs love to celebrate the Festival of Lights, from the warm glow of holiday candles in the menorah to the fun of family gatherings. But sometimes the excitement of Chanukah, its treasured rituals, and the tradition of gifts can tempt a youngster to misbehave.... Come along on a joyfu...
Scarecrow dances across the field to the window of the farm house. He watches the young boy pray that the Lord will watch over the scarecrow to keep the fields safe. He returns to his post with the knowledge of his important role. This book would be appropriate to share as a read aloud with child...
Yolen's biography of J.M. Barrie reveals for young readers the childlike behavior the famous Scottish author and playwright had throughout his life. She includes many quotes from his stories and plays which appear set off from the text in the margins, bottom of a page, etc. Yolen's masterful stor...
I was looking for stories about women at sea and came across Jane Yolen's, Sea Queens book. Whoever said women were the weaker sex? Yolen starts her nonfiction book with Artemisia, Admiral Queen of Persia: 500-480 BC. What? Lady sea captains in that era? Yes, there were and she continues her expl...
In Peking China there was a mighty emperor who could buy anything he desired, yet what he wanted the most he could not have. His daughter Hwei Ming was born blind, more than anything the emperor wished that she could be made to see. Even though many people tried, magicians, physicians, priests, n...
"You must open your mind to the world of the impossible," the fox said, "and then it becomes the world of the possible." (37)This is a unique blend of retellings: the Twelve Dancing Princess and the Three Billy Goats Gruff.First, there's Moira. Moira is a gifted classical violinist and one of the...
This is the second book to Jane Yolen's series of dragon taming. This book captivates the reader at the start-reminding the readers that Jakkin has accomplished his goal to become a dragon master. As a dragon master, people start to treat him like a real master. Later on, he would meet Akkin who ...
First off, forgive me—I read this about a month ago, and didn’t have the time to blog it; now some of the details are fuzzy. But what really stands out as excellent is the world building. I picked up the book expecting it to be high fantasy; instead, it’s science fiction that happens to feature d...
Giving this book a star rating and a review feels…strangely inappropriate. No piece of literature is above critique, of course, but after I finished this one, I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me a little. Though it wasn’t flawless, but deconstructing it for a full-fledged review didn’t f...
I bought these books because I love how Jane Yolen writes. I didn't realize they were so small (about 80 to 90 pages each; I read them all in one evening), but I should have guessed because they are written for an elementary-age reader. But I loved them anyway. They are a fun coming-of-age advent...
The Story...This is the second book in the Merlin Trilogy and starts with a young Merlin leaving his burned down home. Before leaving, though, Merlin buries his 'family', Master Robin, Meg and Nell. Apparently, young Merlin foresaw the fire, but did not know how to interpret his prophetic dream a...
Originally reviewed on The Book SmugglersFor as long as she can remember, Becca has been enamored, frightened, and captivated by her Grandmother Gemma's favorite story - that of Briar Rose, and the awful sleeping curse placed on her and all her people by the cruel fairy with black boots and embla...
I read this book many many years ago and remembered loving it. Recently, I started indulging in a guilty pleasure - The CW's Reign and once I binged watched the two seasons over a few weeks, I had to get more of the life of Mary, Queen of Scots(and preferably, something a little more historicall...
As I expected Prince Charles Stuart is portrayed with great sympathy, but there's no attempt made to mitigate the tremendous mistake in strategy that led to the Battle of Culloden. Long ago, as a teenager with no Scottish background whatsoever, I had an obsession with the Jacobite cause, Robert...
I read this and "Sister Light, Sister Dark" along with "The One Armed Queen" several years ago after finding them both in a second hand bookstore and they've all stuck with me. The story that Jane Yolen weaves is both magical and exciting beautiful. The story is told in three parts: First is the ...
Following the resounding success of my Locus Quest, I faced a dilemma: which reading list to follow it up with? Variety is the spice of life, so I’ve decided to diversify and pursue six different lists simultaneously. This book falls into my LOCUS Y-A list.I think I’ll always have a soft-spot for...
Young Artos lives in Sir Ector's castle and is shoved around by the other boys. One day, while tracking down a wayward hound, he discovers a cave that has a dragon living in it. The dragon offers him wisdom in exchange for pots of gravy and meat.It's a grand tale of young King Arthur with some ...
This was a fun little read about what Odysseus may have been like as a young teen and some of the adventures he may have had. There was plenty of action and humor and 'will they make it out okay' thrills. I would totally recommend it to young boys (and gals, because Penelope is a strong girl) e...
Book three of Pit Dragon Trilogy. A story of a young couple on the run with dragons. They escaped to a land so inhospitable that anyone staying there for very long would die of the cold. But they live there because they are hunted at their home; a home it appears they will never be able to retur...
I wondered how similar this trilogy would be to T.A. Barron's Merlin series. I thought there would be at least a few common threads, but really they are very different. They started with similar ideas - a series about Merlin as a boy - and arrived at very different end products. Both series are w...
This is a series of related stories, sequential with the same characters and setting but semi-freestanding. Even so, the book is still pretty short and a fairly quick read.It's definitely written in the style of a fairy tale or lore, and is formulaic enough to carry the ambiance, but is not so fo...
Jennifer, Peter, Molly, and their parents have come to Scotland to visit close friends of their mother. It doesn't seem much different from an ordinary vacation, until Molly finds a map with the power to change the world around them. The map's original owner, however, is an evil wizard who wants ...
