Children’s Book Reviews
Summertime is a Breeze with these Fine Books. Read and Enjoy!
by Selene Vasquez

Picture books: ages 5 thru 10:

There Was A Bold Lady Who Wanted A Star
by Charise Harper (Little Brown and Co., 32 pp., $15.95).

A cheery retelling of the favorite song There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly with a feisty woman roller-skating, bicycling and even rocketing to reach a star.

The Magic Hat
by Mem Fox. Illustrated by Tricia Tusa. (Harcourt, 32 pp., $16.00)

There’s mischief and wizardry in a hat that blows into town, changing people into different animals as it lands on their heads. Whimsical illustrations in watercolor and ink.

Biography: ages 8 thru 10:

The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins
by Barbara Keeley. Illustrated by Brian Selznick. (Scholastic Press, 32 pp., $16.95)

In the mid nineteenth century, a Victorian artist named Waterhouse Hawkins dazzled the slumbering scientific world with the creation of monumental dinosaur sculptures. Luminous paintings make this tribute to an ingenious artist a visual masterpiece.

Fiction: ages 6 thru 8:

Things That Sometimes Happen
by Avi. Illustrated by Marjorie Priceman. (Atheneum, 32 pp., $16.95).

“On a very hot day, an Ice-cream Cone waits...and waits... to be eaten.” Nine succinct short stories for very young listeners delightfully capture the joyous and uninhibited spirit of childhood imagination.#

Selene S. Vasquez is a media specialist at Orange Brook Elementary School. She is formerly a children’s librarian for the New York Public Library.