Have no fear, Chet Gecko is here! That’s right, the fourth-grade student/detective Chet Gecko is back in the 14th mystery of Bruce Hale’s popular Chet Gecko Mystery series, From Russia With Lunch. The school’s been turned upside-down, with the kids who would normally be considered teachers’ pets getting into trouble and being...

Seahorses, majestic, elegant, strange, exotic, delicate, are endangered animals. I would never have thought when I was a boy that they would one day be endangered animals. I just thought they were pretty cool, and I had a dried, preserved specimen of one as a part of my seashell collections, though they...

Do you like reading about way-cool animals? Then you’ll enjoy reading about the strangest parrot in the world, the endangered kakapo, and the efforts of scientists and conservationists to save them from becoming extinct. It’s a fascinating look at the world’s only flightless parrot, with brilliant color close-up photographs of the birds...

If you love reading rollicking, action-packed fantasy novels about pirates, wizards, cursed magical stones, and dark elves, then you need to feed that hunger for swashbuckling adventure tales by getting the latest collaboration by the father and son team of R.A & Geno Salvatore, The Sentinels: Stone of Tymora, Book III, from...

Yogi Bear is based on a TV show under the same name from the late 50’s. The Warner Brother film adaption stays true to the original series, with Yogi being the leader and BooBoo being his more down to earth sidekick. The story is set in Jellystone Park, and they, of course,...

If you like magical books about horses with wondrous powers who travel between the worlds of Faerie, then House of the Star by Caitlin Brennan is the book for you! The heroine of the novel is Elen, a princess of the kingdom of Ymbria. Her greatest wish is to become a rider...

  Do you remember going to school for the first time? Or, are you maybe going to start school in a year or two? Sometimes starting school can be pretty exciting, but it can also be a little scary, if you’re not sure what to expect. Dougie Goes to School, the second...

Learning to ride a bike can be a VERY BIG deal, and it may seem difficult at first, but don’t let it get you down. Practice makes perfect, as Dougie discovers in Dougie Learns to Ride. It’s a wonderful book that is sure to be a big hit with young kids who are...

Snickers may satisfy people, but it takes brains to satisfy zombies, or Zums, as Tom Sawyer and the other characters who populate The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead by Don Borchert and Mark Twain call them. In this volume, you’ll find practically the entire novel Mark Twain wrote, plus the...

Avalon High is one of the Disney Channel’s original movies that they are airing during November sweeps. The movie is about a girl who moves to a new town and goes to a new school called Avalon High, which she soon finds out has Arthurian ties to it. Once she’s there, Allie...

Being a boy genius can have lots of benefits, but also drawbacks. If you don’t believe it, just ask Cadel Greeniaus of Catherine Jinks’ The Genius Wars, the third novel in her trilogy about Cadel. Using one’s knowledge for evil, as Cadel did in Evil Genius, the first book in the series,...

My boys love Zhu Zhu Pets as demonstrated by all the Zhu Zhu Pets and accessories they have at my parents’ house.  They also love their (my) Nintendo Wii, so we take a look at the game from Activision that gives us some Zhu Zhu pets to control with the Wii. Think casual gamer with...

I had a toy when I was younger that I loved. It had a dumptruck bulldozer, and it was on a gray track, and it would pick up these little black balls to simulate coal.  It was one of my favorites, and I would always ask my parents to set up the track...