BOOK NAME:
Jake Ransom and the Skull King’s Shadow
AUTHOR:
James Rollins

Jake Ransom and the Skull King’s Shadow is about a boy named Jake and his sister. They go to a museum and they each have these coins on necklaces that they got from their parents who died. They died while they were discovering artifacts at this archaeological dig. At the museum Jake grabbed the two necklaces and held them together against this pyramid and they fit together and matched a symbol on the pyramid.

This caused them to travel to this weird place, where they immediately almost got eaten by a Tyranosaurus rex. They met two people who would become their best friends in the story. They are taken to the main town and everyone thinks that they were sent by the Skull King. But there are no signs of this so they’re allowed to stay.

The people of the town get attacked by the Skull King’s minions. Jake is made an assistant priest of the town because of his knowledge of sy-enz (science) which is like magic to the people in this land. You’ll have to read the book to find out how and if Jake and his sister can save the town and themselves.

I recommend this book to maybe 7-15 year olds. You will like it if you like adventure, action and awesome books. Me and my dad are going to read the second book of the series, which hasn’t even come out yet, but I got an early reader copy. It’s called Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx.

BOOK NAME: Looking for Marco Polo
AUTHOR:
Alan Armstrong

Looking for Marco Polo is a good book. I like it because I like learning about explorers and it is a good adventure book.

It is about this boy named Mark, and his dad is going on a trip to the desert where Marco Polo went. His dad can only bring a bag that has less than 20 pounds in it. Mark’s father puts two gold coins in his socks and salt in his backpack. The salt is good for trading and the two gold coins are for emergencies. He also brings as much water as he can because there’s never enough water in the desert. He ends up with 19 ½ pounds in his pack so he fills up the rest of the space with maps.

Mark’s dad gets lost, so Mark and his mother go to Venice, Italy to try and find him. Venice is where his dad’s trip started, and it’s also where Marco Polo started his trip.

Marco Polo is a famous explorer. He explored some of China and traveled on the Silk Road. Mark gets sick…the same kind of sickness that Marco Polo had. His mother calls a doctor, someone who worked in a war with his dad. Marco Polo had a big black dog, and the doctor had the same kind of dog. One night, the dog starts talking to Mark and explains that he’s a relative of Marco Polo’s dog.

Mark hangs out with the doctor and the doctor tells he and his mother the story of Marco Polo. In real life, Marco Polo meets a man in prison. Marco tells his story to the man who ended up writing his famous book. Marco died before he finished his full story and he says on his deathbed: “I’ve only told half of what I know.”

I would recommend this book for kids ages 7-11. You would like this book because it is a cool adventure book. It will help you learn about explorers in social studies.

Awesome Animals is a fun book. It has lots and lots of posters and fun games to do.
When I was doing the games, some were hard, so every once in a while I’d have to look in the back of the book to find some of the answers. And I love how it has all of the animals pretty much. There’s these little animals mad libs which I really like too.

Other kinds of games are finding games…like finding different kinds of things that are hidden in a picture. There’s also the game where you have to find the differences in two pictures, which are ALMOST the same.

My favorite part of the book is the animals on the posters. The posters all fold out from the book and each has different information about each of the animals. There are 10 posters in all, including dolphins, pandas, jaguars, elephants, koala bears, sea turtles, frogs, lions and penguins. I just really love them.

I would recommend this book to maybe 5-10 years old. I loved and I just think you would too. Adios!

BOOK NAME: Cats vs. Dogs
AUTHOR: Elizabeth Carney

Cats vs. Dogs is about which pet is the best. There are a lot of contests in the book like Senses, Diet, Communication, and Behavior. The book tells you what each animal can do or is like. At the end of each little chapter, there’s a box that tells you who’s the winner–cats, dogs, or a tie.

Cats won a lot and dogs won a lot. It’s really a tie, so in the Final Showdown it shows that there’s not really one winner, there’s two…it’s a tie.

The books tells you some interesting facts like if cats have a twitchy tail, it means the cat is ready to pounce. Some other facts about cats are when “cats sweep their tails from side to side when they’re feeling excited or aggressive.” We looked at our cat Archie and his tail was straight up which means he was happy.

This is what dogs do about their tails: “Happy dogs wag their tails from side to side or round and round like a propeller.” Also, “when dogs are scared they tuck their tail between their legs.” “Dogs hold their tails still and upright when they sense danger.” We couldn’t really see our dog Jibber’s feelings…mostly because she doesn’t really have a tail; she only has half a tail.

And that’s what Cats vs. Dogs is all about. I would recommend it for ages maybe 5 through 10. I’m in second grade and it was a really easy book for me and I think everyone would really like it.

BOOK NAME: You Wouldn’t Want To…Series
AUTHORS: Various

In the You Wouldn’t Want To… series, there are a lot of different kinds of books, like You Wouldn’t Want to Sail on the Mayflower and You Wouldn’t Want to be a Pyramid Builder. The ones I’ve read are You Wouldn’t Want to Sail with Christopher Columbus, You Wouldn’t Want to be in a Medieval Dungeon, You Wouldn’t Want to be a Civil War Soldier, You Wouldn’t Want to be a Roman Gladiator, and You Wouldn’t Want to be an Egyptian Mummy.

In You Wouldn’t Want to be an Egyptian Mummy, the mummies are treated like they’re alive. They’re buried with famous jewels. If a thief steals one, they’d be able to sell it for a lot of money. But most of the thieves are caught, and if they are, they’re killed.

In You Wouldn’t Want to be in a Medieval Dungeon, the book shows you all kinds of different prisons, and how you could even be sent to one. It even shows what it would be like in the prisons. There are lots of bugs and diseases, it’s dirty, it’s cold, there’s nowhere to sleep. If you have to go the bathroom, then just find a corner of your dungeon.

In You Wouldn’t Want to be a Roman Gladiator, there’s barely anything good to eat, and you have to fight to the death! You’d love this one. It was my favorite.

These are cool books because they’re funny and weird. I would recommend them to maybe 5-year-olds to 12-year-olds. My brother Reed (who’s also a DogEared blogger) loves them. And so does my Dad. They have really cool pictures. It’s good because it’s written from the point of view as if you were there.

BOOK NAME: Nat Geo Wild Animal Atlas
AUTHOR: National Geographic

This is a book that I like. It’s called Nat Geo Wild Animal Atlas. I think it’s cool because it has lots of animals and tells you about the earth: where animals live, what continents they live on, and all kinds of maps.

The book tells about animals ecosystems which are ice caps, mountain, grassland, desert, forest, wetland, tundra, and coral reef.

In this book, it also tells what forest produces the most amount of oxygen–which is the Amazon rain forest in South America. The Amazon rain forest has spotted leopards, blue-and-yellow macaws, red-bellied piranhas, and green anaconda snakes which kill their prey by squeezing it to death.

In Africa, some of the animals you learn about are giraffes, elephants, hyenas, and wildebeests.

This book also tells about which animals are endangered and which are not. It also tells about which ecosystems are in which parts of the world.

The book shows a lot of pictures of animals, what they eat, and what they do. My favorite part of the book was looking at the maps of the continents to see which animals live where. This book would be good for ages 4-10.

BOOK NAME: The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor (Revised Second Edition) (Vol. 1)
AUTHOR:
Susan Wise Bauer

This book is about history. There are stories about all kinds of battles, buildings, empires, Romans, seas, Atlantis, and even gods. There are many cool things in this book.

I’m going to tell you about one story about a kid who wanted to take over the whole world. The boy’s name was Alexander and his horse was named Bucephalus. His dad, King Philip, takes him to get a warhorse and he sees the big beautiful black horse Bucephalus. Nobody could ride it except Alexander, and so his King Philip buys it for him.

When King Philip dies Alexander became the new King. He became known as Alexander the Great. He wanted to take over Persia and he won those battles. He didn’t want to stop there and he conquered the rest of Asia Minor. He wanted to keep on going and take over the whole world. He went south into Egypt and captured a big city and named it after himself–Alexandria. And Alexandria is still in Egypt!

Then he tried to conquer India. He even used Elephants in combat. But a lot of Macedonians died in those battles and so the men said, “We don’t want to die in battle.” And the men then said, “We don’t want to fight anymore, can we go home.” Alexander told them that he was tired and told them that he’d have an answer for them the next day. But he got sick and when he was seen the next day, he could only move his eyes. He died that day. He was only 31 years old.

Some of the other stories I liked were about Romulus and Remus who founded Rome, Odysseus who had to battle a giant Cyclops, and I learned all about Gladiators.

BOOK NAME: The Big Book of Fun
AUTHOR: National Geographic

This is a good book because you can take it anywhere if you don’t have anything to do like on an airplane, or if you’re going to the beach during summer vacation.

There are lots of games and activities that you have to figure out. My favorites are mazes. The games have different themes like oceans and jungles. Another one of the games takes animals heads and swirls them around and you have to guess what it is. There’s another activity where there are pictures of animals in different places, but they’re in the wrong place, so you have to find where they belong.

There are also look and find pages, and Funny Fill Ins, which are just like Mad Libs. I like those because they’re funny.

This book is good for maybe ages 4-8; Kindergarten through 2nd grade. I needed my dad to help me read some of the harder instructions. It’s a lot of fun.

Interested in seeing The Big Book of Fun for yourself? Enter the giveaway for a chance to get your own copy!

BOOK NAME: Even Monsters Need Haircuts
AUTHOR:
Matthew McElligott

This book is about monsters…and lots of them have hair! So they need haircuts. This little boy goes to a barber shop that his dad owns and gives the monsters a haircut when his dad’s not there.

They can only give the haircuts at night when nobody’s there. So Dracula wakes up the boy and when he’s a bat he flies with him to the barbershop. Dracula turns back into a person and he gets the first haircut. Soon the barbershop is full of monsters–ghosts, mummies, and monsters with three heads.

He has to cut all kinds of different hair. Cyclops just has one really long hair that he needs cut. The wolfman has all kinds of hair, all over his body, so he needs a big haircut. Frankenstein’s hair is cut straight across the top. The boy has to braid Medusa’s hair blindfolded because if he looks at her he’ll turn to stone. And one haircut he doesn’t even know what to do…a skeleton doesn’t even have hair!

A person comes in and all the monsters start hiding because they can’t let any regular people see them. So they all hide (in the worst hiding spots) and the person sits down on the chair and says, “Can you take a little off the top?” And then he takes off his entire head! And all the monsters laugh.

This book would be good for kids who like monsters…and who want to be barbers. This book is good for ages 5-7. It’s a picture book with really good pictures.

BOOK NAME: Stone Rabbit series
AUTHOR: Erik Craddock

I’m going to write about three books in the Stone Rabbit series. The first one is called BC Mambo. The second one is Pirate Palooza. The third one is called Deep Space Disco. There’s only five books out, but I’m only going to write about three, because I only have three. I want to get the other ones because those look cool.

These books are action kids’ books. Each is like a comic book, with a lot of words like “poof”, “pow” and that kind of stuff.

BC Mambo is about Stone Rabbit finding a giant hole in his bathroom and falls through it and lands in dinosaur eggs. Stone Rabbit runs into a lot of dinosaurs until he finally gets out of that world.

In Pirate Palooza, Stone Rabbit finds a leg for a table that he broke, but he doesn’t know it’s a pirate’s wooden leg. He has to fight a lot of pirates and he eventually saves the pirates from getting attacked by this other ship.

In Deep Space Disco, he goes into this restaurant and gets sucked into a spaceship, so then he’s an astronaut. He and his friend save the world.

I like these books because there’s a lot of action and they’re funny. I
think these books are good for kids in first and second grade.