Geo Librarian

POOP DETECTIVES Working Dogs in the Field by Ginger Wadsworth Charlesbridge, 2016 ISBN: 978-1-58089-650-4 MG/YA Nonfiction Ages 9 and up Source: publisher for review All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK How can dogs that sniff for excrement, urine, vomit, and mucus help protect animals from extinction? Scat-detection dogs like Wicket, Tucker, and Orbee are conservation heroes and pioneers in a cutting-edge field of science. Canine detec-tives use their super sense of smell to locate the scat of target animals. From loose bear dung to gooey whale poop, scat can tell scientists valuable information about an animal’s sex, age, diet, and health—all without harming the animal or endangering the researcher. REVIEW While poop is not something that I normally like to read about, I found this book fascinating.  Poop Detectives explores the use of trained dogs to track wild animals through there scat (droppings).  Instead of catching ...

100 MOST DESTRUCTIVE NATURAL DISASTERS by Anna Claybourne Scholastic, 2014 ISBN: 978-0-545-80859 Ages 8-12 Source: purchased All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK Gigantic, powerful, devastating--these are the 100 most destructive natural disasters ever. Next in the successful 100 MOST series, 100 Most Destructive Natural Disasters Ever will feature the world's most devastating hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. This book will investigate Mother Nature's worst moments, from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed over 200,000 people to the historic 1900 Galveston hurricane. It's everything you ever wanted to know about natural disasters and a whole lot of things you didn't.   REVIEW Reading this book was eye-opening.  Natural disasters occur on an annual basis, some worse than others. This book highlights the worst natural disasters from recorded history.  It's awe-inspiring to read about what Mother E...

THE AGE OF MIRACLES: A NOVEL by Karen Thompson Walker Random House, 2012 ISBN: 978-0812992977 Grades 4-7 Reviewed from copy provided by publisher through NetGalley. Book Synopsis comes from Goodreads. “It still amazes me how little we really knew. . . . Maybe everything that happened to me and my family had nothing at all to do with the slowing. It’s possible, I guess. But I doubt it. I doubt it very much.” Luminous, haunting, unforgettable, The Age of Miracles is a stunning fiction debut by a superb new writer, a story about coming of age during extraordinary times, about people going on with their lives in an era of profound uncertainty. On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ...

This is my first Marvelous Middle Grade Monday post, but since I love middle grade as a genre, it will not be my last. WOLF STORM by Dee Garretson Harper, 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-200032-3 Grades 4 and up Reviewed from copy received from author in giveaway. All opinions here expressed are solely my own. This is Stefan's big break.  He's on location in the mountains far from home for his first movie role, filming a blockbuster sci-fi adventure.  The props, the spaceships, and the trained wolves on set should add up to a dream job, but acting turns out to be much tougher than he ever imagined, and he feels like his inner loser is all that's showing through.  From the way his famously stuck-up co-star, Raine, treats him, he's pretty sure she thinks so too.  And worst of all, no one will believe his claim that there are wild wolves haunting the forest around the set. When a blizzard strikes, isolating the young co-stars and bringing hungry feral wolves into the ...

EXPLORE TITANIC: Breathtaking New Pictures, Recreated with Digital Technology by Peter Chrisp, with illustrations by Somchith Vongprachanh Barron's, 2011 ISBN: 978-1-4380-7159-6 Grades 3 and up Reviewed from purchased copy. Boys and girls will be enthralled by this dramatic pictorial history of the great ocean liner "R.M.S. Titanic, " and its fateful sinking in the North Atlantic. Approximately 125 photos and illustrations in color and black and white--including 12 astonishing 3D-rendered graphics--tell the "Titanic's " story, from its 1911 launching at the Belfast shipyard to its tragic destruction on April 15, 1912 during its maiden Atlantic crossing. Young readers will see faithful reproductions of both exterior and interior ship's details, from the Boiler Room and Engine Room far below decks to the luxury passengers' cabins and the ship's grand ballroom. Among the 3D-rendered artworks are two remarkable double-gatefold illu...

Wildfire Run written by Dee Garretson Harper, 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-195347-7 Interest Level: Grades 4-8 Reviewed from purchased copy. BLURB : Just once Luke Brockett would like to do something slightly dangerous, but when your father is the President of the United States, that is not an option. Always surrounded by Secret Service agents and kept in a bubble of safety, Luke sees Camp David, the presidential retreat in the woods of Maryland, as the only place where he can almost be normal. For one week in August, Luke's mother has arranged for Luke to have a 'summer camp' experience, if summer camp had only three kids and the counselors carried automatic weapons. The experience comes to a quick end when a forest fire surrounds Camp David. Luke and his friends are trapped inside, left on their own, the Secret Service agents incapacitated, forcing the three to outwit security systems designed to be unbeatable before the fire gets to them. Reading books like ...

America: The Last Best Hope, Volume 3 From the Collapse of Communism to the Rise of Radical Islam written by William J. Bennett Thomas Nelson, 2009 ISBN: 978-1-5955-5428-4 Interest: High school/Adult Reviewed from copy received through the Book Sneeze program. BLURB : Twenty years ago, John McCain was serving his second year in the Senate, and Colin Powell had just been promoted to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There was no Fox News Channel, no American Idol . Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeni ruled Iraq and Iran, respectively. George W. Bush was the fairly unnoticeable son of the then-president. If you asked someone to "email me," you would have received a blank stare, and "Amazon" was a forest in South America. Finally, 20 years ago a young man named Barack Obama was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. The two decades from 1988 to 2008 have proved to be some of the most pivotal in America's his...

Otis and the Tornado written and illustrated by Loren Long Philomel Books, 2011 ISBN: 978-0-399-25477-2 Grades K-3 Reviewed from personal copy. Otis the tractor and his farm animal friends love to play follow the leader.  All the animals participate except for the big bull who snorts and growls at anyone (or anything) that gets too close to his pen or pasture.  Otis tries to befriend the beast, but with no luck.  The day a tornado arrives at the farm changes everything.  While the farmer and his family run for the cellar, Otis frantically releases the animals and they flee to the lowest lying land on the farm. When Otis realizes that the bull is not there he is determined to help the animals despite past unkindnesses. I'll say right off the bat that I am a big fan of Otis.  I fell in love with him the minute I read the first book.  So much so that I ordered the stuffed toy .  I like this book even better than first.  The large, bright ill...