Matt Monroe and the Secret Society by Edward Torba starts off with Matt in a field watching lights rise above the field. Turns out that’s a dream, though. Matt runs off to take care of mowing the lawn of a local dentist. We learn that Matt has an older brother, Josh, who is very popular. Matt’s best friend is Zach, an out of shape young man who is very loyal to his friends. Dr. Steel, the dentist asks if there’s still a secret society that meets in town. Matt is surprised, but we learn that the society has been going for some time. It’s time for Matt and Zach to be initiated into the society soon and they’re slightly nervous about it.

As the story unfolds, Matt finds some mysterious wooden tablets and a ring. The adults in town convene a meeting and we meet the rest of the friends of Matt and Josh. It turns out that there is a larger secret society – of Dentists. They have worked to protect the world for some time against an evil fairy who wants to eliminate all of mankind. It’s now fallen on Matt to stop the villain and save the world or die trying.

Matt sets off with his friends and Josh and his friends. Along the way, we learn that the Tooth Fairy is actually real and in charge of fighting for humanity. The secret society of dentists was formed to help humans partner with the fairy world and maintain the balance. Will Matt save the world? Will his friends survive the quest or fall along the way as Matt reads in a prophecy?

My Take: Overall, I enjoyed the book. While the idea of a Tooth Fairy and secret society of dentists does tend to stretch disbelief quite a bit, it works well for the story. There were a couple of minor twists in the story that work well for this YA novel. The dental references seemed silly at times, but the story underneath was enjoyable. The story flowed pretty well from the beginning through to the end and I think that it could be a decent read for its target age range.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a preview copy of this book with no explanations on the part of the publisher. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced by anyone else.

The Berenstain Bears Easter Magic by Stan & Jan Berenstain is an early reader book originally printed in 1997. It’s targeted at families with young kids to help them learn to read. The artwork is typical Berenstain Bears, which means that everything is well drawn and the characters are expressive.

As this is an early reader book, it has a rhyming style so every two lines rhyme and follow the same meter. The story starts with the onset of Spring, but quickly leads into a visit from the Easter Bunny and candy. As always, the authors leave with a quick message. In this case, the message is not to eat too much candy.

My Take: It’s an early reader book. If you like the Berenstain Bears and tend to celebrate Easter with bunnies and candy, it could be useful to assist your younger children with reading. It’s not going to be a deep read by any means. It’s short and could make for a quick bedtime read. Personally, we don’t celebrate bunnies at Easter so this isn’t going to be in my “must buy” list, but I realize that it could appeal to others.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a preview copy of this book with no expectations on the part of the publisher. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced by anyone else.

Simon’s Cat in Kitten Chaos by Simon Tofield is the latest collection of drawings by Simon Tofield outlining the lives of cats, kittens, other animals, and their owners. If you’ve never watched one of his videos, you owe it to yourself to watch one on Youtube. If you have ever watched cats playing around, you’ll recognize quite a few of their antics.

This collection of drawings opens with Simon finding a box outside and bringing it into his home, passing by his cat. The cat is begging for food, as is pretty normal for cats. Simon gets a bowl of food ready, much to his cat’s delight. However, he’s trying to coax an animal out of this box – the kitten. The kitten comes out, eats the food, and we see the ongoing relationship between the cat and the kitten. At times they are friends, at times they’re at odds.

Some of the comics remind me of the old Spy vs Spy comics where they constantly try to one-up the other. Others just show cute drawings of the animals going about their daily business. We see shots of the cats crawling in and out of various small places, climbing, scratching, eating, chasing animals, and generally being cats. All of the drawings make up mini stories told without words. We end the book with Simon showing, in brief, how to draw some of the animals he uses in his works.

My Take: I have enjoyed Simon’s Cat for some time on YouTube and never realized that he had books compiling his artwork. His books are just as entertaining as his videos. Having owned a cat before these drawings hit really close to the truth. I chuckled while looking at the drawings and really enjoyed the book. I plan to seek out more of Simon’s compilations now that I know they’re available. You should definitely check out Simon’s YouTube channel and check out his books. The introduction of the kitten really makes the animal antics even more interesting.

Disclaimer: I was given a preview copy of this book with no expectations on the part of the publisher. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced by anyone else.

Second Chances by Max Lucado is the latest compilation of stories from one of the great modern Christian story-tellers. Max this time ties all of his stories together under the theme that “God gives second chances”. He breaks that down into stories of the rebellious, regret-riddled, prideful, mistake-makers, those with a faltering faith, and those who have hurt us.

The first story is familiar to those who know the New Testament – the parable of the Prodigal Son, but told from the perspective of the son. He tells the story of someone who suddenly realizes how far he’s fallen and decides that it’s time to stop making excuses and pretending that he’s better off than he really is. That is followed by the story of a mother seeking her daughter who had run away to the big city. Another similar story tells of a father desperately reaching out to his daughter who had run away with a boy. In each story, the person who left home had to overcome their pride and accept the love freely offered to them back home.

Those who have regrets are addressed next – missed opportunities, squandered dreams, or drowning in sin. Max weaves stories of how there are second chances offered to everyone who looks for them and accepts God’s offer of forgiveness and love. One story tells of people carrying around sacks of rubbish that represents their sins. The only way to get rid of them is to let someone else who doesn’t have any rubbish take it from them.

We read stories of Paul, Jonah, Peter, Moses, and many other prominent figures in the Bible. Each is told in Max’s style. Of course, that means that Max takes some creative liberties with the stories. They’re all based on the Bible or themes that we see in the Bible, though few should be taken as exact translations.

My take: If you’ve read Max Lucado before and enjoyed his works, you’ll like this one. If you aren’t familiar with his writings, this is a good representation of his work and a great read. For those struggling with forgiveness, the stories in Second Chances will be helpful. I really liked the stories and readings. They make for quick reads, but give you quite a bit to think about.

Disclaimer: I was given a preview copy of this book with no expectations on the part of the publisher. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced by anyone else.

Your New Job Title Is “Accomplice” by Scott Adams is the 40th book compiling the adventures of Dilbert in cubicle-land. Ever since Scott Adams started drawing Dilbert in the late 80’s, it’s resonated with office workers everywhere. We can see a lot of our lives in the day to day challenges Dilbert faces. We see workers finding every excuse to leave early and escape meetings, relate to the adventures many of us seem to have with outsourcing, and people in charge who just don’t understand what their employees do.

If you haven’t read Dilbert before and work in an office with cubicles, you’re missing out. Go to www.dilbert.com right now and catch up a little bit. If you have read the comic strips before, you know that this book will be more strips poking fun at life in corporate America. That doesn’t mean that the material becomes old or re-used. There’s always something new to laugh at in our corporate lives (and sadly, relate to as well).

My take: If you’re a Dilbert fan, you’ll enjoy this. There’s a chance you’ve already read the strips, even, but that doesn’t make them less funny reading them again. It’s a fun read and helps us realize that we’re not alone in our work life.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a preview copy of this book with no expectations on anyone’s part. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced by anyone else.

Camp ABC: A Place for Outdoor Fun is a short picture book aimed at children younger than 6 that gives 26 ideas about what can be done outside. This follows the letters of the alphabet and includes animal-spotting, canoeing, and so on. It’s definitely designed for early readers to correlate letters of the alphabet with different outdoor activities. This book is designed to be read together with a parent as some of the words are definitely beyond an early reader. The illustrations are reasonable for this style of book and I think they’d be appealing to younger readers following along.

My Thoughts: I think that there could have been better activities to correspond to some of the letters. There seemed to be a lot of examples involving boating. While that can be fun, I think that a little more variety instead of canoeing, kayaking, and rowing (for example) could have been used, especially with the book being so short. I don’t have a child at home that fits the target age range, but if I did I could see this being something we could read together. Our family likes camping so this would be a good fit for us. If your family doesn’t do much outdoors, you might use this to get some ideas of things to try, but it likely wouldn’t be a good fit otherwise.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a preview copy with no expectations on the part of the publisher. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced by anyone else.

I Hate Picture Books by Timothy Young is a relatively short illustrated book aimed at the young reader just growing out of the “picture book” phase. We are introduced to our protagonist who exclaims at great length about how much he hates picture books and how ridiculous they are. Mr. Young throws out some great reminders of our childhood favorites, including Green Eggs and Ham, Are You My Mother, and others. Many books show up throughout the story in the background, which will bring a smile to parents. Some of the situations given are silly enough to get a laugh out of younger readers. The ending is very appropriate for the story and will get a smile from parents reading this with their children.

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this. It’s short, but well illustrated. I could pick out several favorite picture books throughout this book, which made it more enjoyable. I shared it with my kid, who is older than the target audience, and she enjoyed it. It won’t be her favorite book, but she caught the references and laughed at the silly parts. I’d say this is definitely worth a read for kids who are on the verge of outgrowing picture books. It reminds us of the silliness of those books, but also the things that make us love them.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a preview copy of this book with no expectations on behalf of the publisher. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced in any way by someone else.

The Action Bible Handbook by David C. Cook is the companion to The Action Bible. It’s a dictionary for those reading the Action Bible to help them understand the people, places, events, and beings discussed in the Bible. It’s arranged alphabetically by topic. The details are sufficient to help children understand a little more about what’s going on, giving details about the people, history, or events as appropriate. There are links provided to both The Action Bible and to the verses in other Bibles.

There are a handful of illustrations throughout the book. Because this book is designed as a dictionary more than something to sit down and read, the pictures are all well done, but limited to one every page or two. The definitions sometimes give several examples, such as the definition for Diseases. Other times, they just provide the basics, such as with Donkeys. The references sometimes are a bit broad, such as entire books of the Bible, but more often point to specific chapters or verses.

My Take: I like this as a Bible Dictionary resource for children. The amount of detail is just right for them to better understand the terms they’ll come across in the Bible. I do see a couple of things that felt missing to me. Maps just don’t seem to show up at all. For those of us in America, it’s hard to relate to the places as easily. Showing some of those locations and why that location is important would have been a nice to have in some cases. I was also a little disappointed that for as many Biblical names as the dictionary includes, there was no pronunciation guide for those names. That would be really helpful for times when we hit a really unfamiliar name. Overall, though, I liked the resource. Those issues are minor compared to the value the book does provide.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a preview copy of this book with no expectations on anyone’s part. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced by anyone else.

The Action Bible Devotional by Jeremy Jones contains 52 devotions based on The Action Bible. Each devotional section contains a selection from The Action Bible in graphic novel format, a key verse, a look at how this applies to our lives today, some activities to bring it all together, some questions, and a place to write what you’ve learned. Finally there’s an application to share what you’ve learned with others or to focus on the bigger picture.

The verses come from the New Living Translation of the Bible. The book is well illustrated with a great graphic novel format to highlight the passages in the Bible. They tell enough of the story to capture the important points without becoming inappropriate for kids. This doesn’t replace actual Bible reading, but can be a great resource to do some weekly devotions as a family or even individually. The order of the devotional readings seems to be based on the traditional ordering of the books in the Bible, not the actual historical order.

My Take: I really like this format for devotional readings for kids. Even for adults, I think there’s enough to think about in the questions that it’s worth reading with your family. The stories tie in well with the devotional reading and I really like the way they are tied to our modern lives. I wouldn’t get into the habit of using The Action Bible or this devotional in place of regular Bible reading, but I can see this being a useful supplement to help with regular reading.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a preview copy of this book with no expectations on anyone’s part. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced by anyone else.

The Missing Cuckoo Clock by Lynda Beauregard is the 5th in the Summer Camp Science Mystieries series of books. Here we join the kids at Camp Dakota and meet our newest camper, Megan. We learn more about gravity throughout the book, starting with how gravity powers a cuckoo clock.

Throughout the book, we see the kids being kids – doing the sort of things that kids would do at summer camp. They swim, and we learn about center of gravity. We learn a bit about how gravity can compress our spines throughout the day as Megan learns she isn’t tall enough to ride a horse. The kids make a gravity-powered clock using water and some cups. We even learn a bit about how gravity affects everything the same, though other properties such as surface area can work to counteract those effects.

The book is well illustrated – definitely a graphic novel as opposed to just a comic book. The key points are called out in a separate panel to draw attention to them, but never in a long, drawn-out way. The explanations work well for the elementary-aged target group and the book is filled with small bits of humor to keep the kids entertained. It’s not a long read, but introduces some basic concepts of gravity and physics to kids. There are some experiments and questions at the end of the book to help the readers solidify their understanding or to try out some of the concepts.

My Take: I think this is a pretty good resource for younger kids to start learning some basics of gravity. It’s not a text book, but if this is something that the kids need to understand, it can be an aid to get them interested to learn more about it in a fun manner. I actually look forward to reading through some more of this series. They’re short reads, entertaining, and I think well-produced for this age group.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a preview copy of this book with no expectations on anyone’s part. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced by anyone else.