(4) 4-6 In alternating chapters, twelve-year-old Lily and her grandfather's circus elephant, Queenie Grace, tell how Lily's grandfather's death affects both child and animal. The prose can be awkward and the plot predictable, but circus-life details are engaging, and readers will feel empathy for both the child (who has abandonment issues courtesy of her distant trapeze-artist mom) and the elephant (whom Lily fights to protect from mistreatment).

Reviewer: Grace Worcester Greene

(4) YA Spanning the time from Sahara's use of a home pregnancy test to the day she leaves the hospital with her newborn, this free-verse novel channels the denial, fear, and anxiety of an unplanned teenage pregnancy. The stuttering slam-style poetry emulates the fragmented thinking of the sixteen-year-old protagonist but doesn't rise above the pedestrian: "It bites, / when everything / depends / on one stupid / blue line."

Reviewer: Megan Lynn Isaac

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Bill Farnsworth. After his family moves to bustling New York City, Ben longs for the home out West that they left behind. He forms a bond with the Tenth Avenue Cowboys, who gallop alongside the city's railroad tracks to warn of approaching trains. The text is straightforward, and the somber oil paintings capture the tone and spirit of New York in 1910. Glos.

Reviewer: Luther B. Clegg

(4) K-3 Illustrated by John O'Brien. While playing his sax and belting out jazzy lyrics, Cool Bopper jets his choppers (a.k.a. dentures) into a lady's beehive hairdo. He then stops performing until he's reunited with his teeth. The rhythmic text is entertaining to read aloud, but the humor is geared more toward adults than kids. Watercolor and ink illustrations show elongated figures arching and stretching to the beat.

Reviewer: Sheila M. Geraty

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Laura Francesca Filippucci. High relates, in free verse, the story of the Thorn family as they witness the battle of Gettysburg and care for the fallen Union and Confederate soldiers during the aftermath. Detailed watercolor and ink illustrations enhance this tenderly crafted narrative. An author's note about the real Thorns and the text of the Gettysburg Address are appended.

Reviewer: Juliet S. King

(4) YA Aspiring poet Laura (a.k.a. Sister Slam) and her friend Twig escape their small town to enroll in "the University / of Gray Road, Blue Sky, / and Yellow Lines." Despite failing at their first poetry slam, the two eventually become minor celebrities in a plot that occasionally stretches credibility. The self-consciously hip novel is written in playful, semi-rhyming verse.

Reviewer: Norah Piehl

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Laura Francesca Filippucci. In a fictional story told in sometimes rhyming free verse, a young girl relates her family's experience in New York City during and immediately after this famous snowstorm. Events seem to belie the severity of the storm--in the middle of it, the family goes to the circus--but muted watercolors convey a nice sense of a city hushed by snow.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Ted Lewin. In Atlantic City in 1936, Ivy and her father, who is employed as a boardwalk photographer, take in the many sights, but Ivy's favorite is the horse who jumps off a high platform into a tank of water and the girl who rides him. At summer's end, Ivy gets a memorable ride on the diving horse. Lewin's picture-postcard-style watercolors add the right nostalgic feel to this gentle, historical story.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Robert Rayevsky. The play between opposites is presented in full-spread cross sections inside this handsome book that explores the world beneath the city. High's minimal text segues smoothly from timeless to practical to unexpected examples. Rayevsky's visual exploration of similarities and contrasts between what's above and below is especially creative. This is an outstanding book, brimming with things to discover.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2001

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Ted Lewin. On a moonlit night, a boy goes out to his father's forge and watches him put shoes on the neighbor's horse. In a big moment for the boy, his father allows him to put a horseshoe on Shadow Horse for the first time by himself. Both the text and Lewin's glowing illustrations are a bit on the sentimental side, but the combination of the topic and the unique atmosphere stands out.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Bill Farnsworth. The author celebrates the life of the Pennsylvania Dutch in seventeen poems. Accompanied by handsome oil paintings that feature scenes of nature, the verses emphasize the connection between the people and the land. Because almost all of the free-verse poems have a similar sound and structure--two or three stanzas composed of short lines with many adjectives--they become a bit tedious when read all at once and will be best appreciated when experienced individually.

Reviewer: Anne St. John

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Ted Lewin. A boy works with his father to salvage and recycle boards and rafters, doors and windows--everything possible from an old barn. High's language and use of similes is poetic, though it is unlikely that a child would speak the way the narrator does in this first-person story. Lewin's watercolors are rich and detailed with a strong sense of light and darkness.

Reviewer: Patricia Riley

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Doug Chayka. Published spring 1998. One sun-filled spring morning a young girl accompanies her grandfather "past the barn, the pond, the trees... and into the bee yard." The two tend to stacks of wooden hives, dislodging a swarm of Grandpa's pollen-laden honeybees. Light-filled oil paintings, rich in golden hues, complete the lyrical text; together, they capture a loving intergenerational story.

Reviewer: Sheryl Lee Saunders