(4) K-3 Road to Reading series. Illustrated by Tom Leonard. In an informative if cursory text, readers learn about the habits of honeybees throughout the year. Large, generic illustrations show bees gathering pollen, building a hive, feeding larva, communicating, and protecting their honey from predators. This is an adequate nonfiction choice for newly independent readers.

Reviewer: Luther B. Clegg

(3) K-3 All Aboard Reading series. Illustrated by Ron Broda. Using short sentences and uncomplicated language, this concise text introduces beginning readers to butterflies--their physical characteristics, habitat, diet, life cycle, and even their migratory habits and how they differ from moths. But it's Broda's exquisite three-dimensional crafted paper scenes, which depict dozens of butterfly patterns in amazing detail, that will have nature lovers returning to this book again and again.

Reviewer: Emma Loy-Santelli