Don’t let the cover of this book scare you! I read this book to my 5 year old daughter and we LOVED it! Franny K. Stein, mad scientist, just wants to fit in at school. After using her scientific powers of observation, she changes herself into a cute little girl in a frilly dress. But when a monster threatens her classmates and teacher, she must revert back to her mad scientist ways to create a likely opponent to save the day. You’ll never guess out of what! The story offers lots of laughs and lots of important lessons – like being true to yourself! It’s a refreshing change of pace to the usual choice of pink princess girly books out there. The action moves quickly. And with fun illustrations at every turn of the page, this is a great read aloud chapter book for the PreK and Kindergarten set. With the exception of “The Fran That Time Forgot,” we have LOVED every book in this series.

Review by Jean-Marie

“Magic Tree House Series “ by Mary Pope Osborne

I have a remarkable 5 year old who is just starting to read chapter books. He is currently in love with the Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne. When he starts losing interest in the book I entice him with a reward of listening to the audio book on CD once he reads most of the book. The books are great for beginning chapter readers and they get the kids interested in the topic discussed in the book (i.e. tornadoes, dinosaurs, wild west, knights, etc.).

Review by Rachel

“Nate the Great “ by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat

“Nate the Great” is the first book in a series of 25 Nate the Great chapter books for young readers. Although the reading level is 2.0 (Beginning 2nd Grade), these books are perfect for advanced kindergartners as well as older and reluctant readers. Nate the great is a young detective. He loves to solve mysteries for his family, friends and neighbors. Annie is Nate’s neighbor. She painted a picture of her dog, left it on her desk to dry, and later when she returned to her desk the painting had disappeared! She called Nate for help, who wasted no time putting on his detective suit and heading her way! Nate asks questions and gathers all the facts. It’s exciting and even suspenseful to follow along as he works to solve the mystery. The storyline is truly interesting. Even as an adult, I was drawn in immediately. I felt as though I was solving the mystery with Nate! The illustrations are captivating and took me back in time. (1970′s) I just adore illustrations in older books.

I hesitate to mention two characteristics of Nate the Great that I don’t particularly care for, but I believe that if I am going to wholeheartedly recommend this book series, I should let you know about two things. First of all, at times Nate the Great is prideful. When he is overwhelmingly prideful and my boys act completely astonished by his pridefulness, I take advantage of that time by discussing the differences between pride and humility. Secondly, Nate does not like girls. This is either clearly stated or implied in each of the books we’ve read so far. I really do not like this part of the storyline. My boys have friends that are boys as well as friends that are girls, and I don’t want them to think it’s o.k. to decide to not like girls.

To see more great reviews like this one check out Marietta’s blog The Bookworm’s Booklist !

1. Gather your materials. Scott used an old black tee-shirt, some doilies, twigs, scissors, newspaper , spritzer bottle, bleach , water and gloves.
2. Start by mixing 2 parts water and one part bleach in your spritzer bottle.
3. Lay out the newspaper and tee-shirt.
4. Cut your doilies, and paper into shapes. You could also use plastic letters, rocks… the sky is the limit. Place them and the twigs on the shirt.
5. Spray with the bleach mixture. Wait. Scott said that it started turning almost immediately!
6. Pop it in a cold wash – dry and you are good to go!

1. Gather your materials. You will need some cardboard, paint, glue, paper in yellow for the chick, and pastels for the dots, a paper fastener,marker, scissors, a feather , googly eyes or buttons and some tape.
2. Start by drawing an egg on the cardboard with a zig zag break in it.
3. Have your child paint this. Try to stick with light colors, we used pretty dark ones and it made our egg look more dinosaur than Easter… Let dry.
4. While they are painting draw a simple chick on the yellow paper.
5. Add eyes a beak and a feather – I taped the feather on.
6. Cut out small circles for decorating the egg- I used scrap card stock.
7. When the egg is dry cut out
8. Add your glue for the card stock dots
9. Add the dots, let dry.
10. Poke holes in both the top and bottom egg shells and thread the fastener through.
11. Add your chick, again I used tape.
12. Open
13. Close