PreSchool-Grade 1—A young child pays tribute to the critters in his backyard that creep, crawl, leap, or fly. "I love brightly-colored-wing bugs/and stripy swipey sting bugs," he declares as his picnic lunch is taken over by butterflies, yellow-jackets, and a dragonfly. The rhyming couplets describe how bugs move, how they sound, and what they look like. Delighting in the natural world, the boy is amazed and awed by the variety of creatures that can be found under logs, in hives, in the grass, and fluttering through the air. Best of all, though, are the eight-legged, hairy, scary ones that send him squealing.
Another exciting mystery begins for Frank and Joe Hardy when they help a stranger who has had an accident with his car. The man introduces himself as John Mead, owner of a nearby estate. After he continues on his way, Frank finds an odd-looking house key which belongs to Mead. But when the Hardys try to return it, they learn that John Mead died five years ago! They are even more amazed when they find that the intricately carved doors in the dead man's deserted mansion have no visible knobs or keylocks.
Judy Moody did not set out to save the world. She set out to win a contest. A Band-Aid contest. It all started with the Crazy-Strip contest - and the dream that she, Judy Moody, might one day see her very own adhesive-bandage design covering the scraped knees of thousands. But when her "Heal the World" motif merits only an honorable mention, Judy Moody realizes it's time to set her sights on something bigger. Class 3T is studying the environment, and Judy is amazed to learn about the destruction of the rain forest, the endangered species (not) in her own backyard, and her own family's crummy recycling habits.
Added by: miaow | Karma: 8463.35 | Fiction literature | 26 February 2010
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The Naked God - vol. 1 Flight and vol. 2 Faith
This final installment of Peter F. Hamilton's Homeric space adventure, which began with The Reality Dysfunction, volumes I (Emergence) and II (Expansion), and continued in The Neutronium Alchemist, volumes I (Consolidation) and II (Conflict), is no simple winding up of the story. You'll be amazed to find Hamilton busily introducing new characters, new plots, and new enigmas up to the very end. After all this time can he possibly surprise us? Absolutely.
