This book is based on the theme of the 12 Days of Christmas. It is written as a poem or can be sung as a song. The characters are based on various types of sea creatures, especially different species of sharks.
The illustrations are hand-drawn in vibrant colors. While the length is less than twenty pages, reading or singing it can become a new holiday tradition. For me, the most interesting part of the book is the section at the end, which presents useful information about each of the different sharks.
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Publisher: Pages Street Kids | ISBN-13: 9781645679936
Publisher’s Book Summary: It’s just after midnight on Walton Wharf West, but there’s no time for sleeping―adventure awaits! Get dressed, grab your oars, let’s not delay. Lou Dozens is here, and we’re sailing to Firelight Bay!
In this modern, young, bold, and inventive adventure, Lou drags her more cautious friend on a daring voyage across the sea. Though their destination is a glorious land of year-round summers, long slides, and picnics a hundred yards wide, the children there have never seen rain, even once.
The mission is simple: bring Firelight Bay a cloud in a jar. But the journey is anything but. Readers will delight in the story’s twists, turns, and unexpected solutions―from a sail of patchwork handkerchiefs to a net crafted from recycled cell phone chargers that saves a beached whale. It’ll take every knick-knack in Lou’s pockets and all the cleverness the pair can muster to safely deliver their gift.
With captivating illustrations and whimsical yet delightfully intricate rhyming text reminiscent of classic children’s poetry, this seafaring quest is one young readers will not soon forget.
Aaron Lewis Krol lives with his family in Lowell, Massachusetts, where he writes about climate change science and solutions for the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative. Like many, his early education included many “invention challenges” where students were tasked with building structures from everyday materials, and he’s pretty sure that’s where the idea for Lou Dozens came from. A Cloud in a Jar is his first picture book.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Carlos Vélez Aguilera lived in the oceanside town of Puerto Vallarta for a time and drew from his memory of those beautiful landscapes and the sense of adventure they gave him while illustrating this book. He also poured in his general love of clouds, the sea, and whales. In addition to drawing, Carlos also likes to dance. He lives in Mexico City, Mexico, with his cat, Benito.
Tuesday, October 31, 2023Q&A with Deborah KalbAuthor Interview with Aaron Lewis Kroll
UP, UP, AND AWAY!
MY REVIEW OF THIS BOOK
A Cloud in a Jar
Written by Aaron Lewis Krol
Illustrated by Carlos Vélez Aguilera
Lou decides to bring her best friend on an adventure. She knocks on her friend’s window in Walton Wharf West to urge her to get up from her bed to sail away to Firelight Bay in her rowboat.
Their mission is to reach Firelight Bay where the residents enjoy endless summers and picnics all day long. Sounds wonderful, but one thing is missing. It never rains. The children can never dance in the rain or stomp in puddles. Lou decides to solve that problem by importing rain with a cloud she has trapped in a jar.
The journey seems doomed from the start as they face one mishap after another, but Lou has tricks up her sleeve. A beautiful sea creature appears when their boat breaks apart. Will the girlfriends reach safety? Can they achieve their mission?
Aquilera does a masterful job of creating bold, expressive illustrations that match the different moods of Krol’s poetic adventure. While the fantasy adventure book targets children ages four through eight, the advanced vocabulary might be more suitable as an independent read for middle grade readers.
GIVEAWAY
Enter for the chance to win a hardcover copy of A Cloud in a Jar!
This picture book features a comic book format. For fans of mermaids, sea creatures, and jokes, the first grade reading level makes it a good fit for a beginning reader. There is a bit of potty humor though it is not the focus of the jokes. Eel presents some puns and jokes about mermaids and later gets into a debate with a shrimp who has a much more serious demeanor.
The illustrations are colorful and engaging. I would suggest this short book as a good choice for children who are reluctant readers or comic book lovers.
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An adorable, little counting book for toddlers and preschoolers. The illustrations are vibrant and fun; the text is easily read aloud.
The author uses sandpipers as her subject. Beach scenes feature counting from one to ten. The bonus features include a song to sing and interactive identification of other sea creatures for the young reader to search out and identify.
Highly recommended and fun for both children and adults.
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Publisher’s Synopsis: Welcome to the amazing world of dinosaurs! Children ages 8 and up can discover where these prehistoric creatures lived, the food they ate, and what they may have looked like. Along the way, they’ll encounter bone-crushing teeth, slashing claws, and spiked tails while learning fascinating facts about dinosaur eggs and fossils, moving continents, climate changes, exploding volcanoes, and even an asteroid crashing into Earth.
An accomplished science and nature illustrator, Patricia J. Wynne is the recipient of the 2008 Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor and has won awards from Parenting magazine, the John Burroughs Association, and the National Science Teachers Association. Patricia’s artwork has appeared in galleries, magazines, newspapers, and more than 100 books for both children and adults. She is the illustrator of numerous successful Dover titles on science and nature, including My First Book About Outer Space and My First Book About the Body.
Trained as a research scientist, Donald M. Silver has written more than 80 books for students of all ages and for teachers. His One Small Square series takes a close-up look at plants and animals where they live. He has won numerous awards including the Children’s Science Writing Award in Physics and Astronomy from the American Institute of Physicists. He lives in New York City where he has worked with Patricia J. Wynne since 1981 and with whom he has co-authored numerous successful Dover titles on science and nature, including the “My First Book” series.
MY REVIEWS
In My First Book About Dinosaurs, children gain a wealth of information while applying their artistic talent to coloring the pages.
The illustrations are detailed and aptly captioned. First, the definition and concept of fossils are explored. The work of paleontologists is explained. Next, the reader learns about the Triassic, Cretaceous, and Jurassic Periods, names of the dinosaurs living in each period, and their characteristics. Finally, readers learn the parts of the world inhabited by each dinosaur and what might have caused their extinction.
Children learn a ton of information by carefully reading the descriptions and studying the illustrations. Highly recommend it for children in the eight to twelve age range.
The oceans book is a perfect choice for children interested in weather phenomena, sealife, volcanoes, tsunamis, and geography. They will enjoy the illustrations and the detailed information accompanying them.
There is a section about climate, the different types of regions around the globe, animals who live under the sea, and the interrelationship of atmosphere and the oceans. A bit of oceanographic history is included.
Recommended for students in grades three through six.
The coloring book about our amazing Earth is a good first introduction to Earth Science. Young explorers learn about rocks, minerals, mountains, our solar system, and the history of our planet.
They are introduced to volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, caves, geysers, and some of our treasured national parks.
After coloring the beautiful illustration, future scientists will want to keep the book as a wealth of reference information.
Recommended for students ages eight through twelve.
I never fully realized the ecosystem available in my own backyard. This book explores backyard treasures found both day and night. There are insects, birds tiny one-celled creatures, and large animals. Many examples of how their life cycles are dependent upon each other are explained. Silver shows trees, leaves, the changes in seasons, how to identify creatures, and the dangers to avoid in the backyard. Readers even learn how to plant a tree.
This beautifully illustrated book will keep middle-grade outdoor enthusiasts busy for hours and provide a plethora of information about our natural world.
GIVEAWAY
Enter for a chance to win a set of four My First Science Books!
Three (3) winners receive:
A copy of My First Book About Dinosaurs
A copy of My First Book About Our Amazing Earth
A copy of My First Book About the Oceans
A copy of My First Book About Backyard Nature
The giveaway begins May 31, 2021, at 12:01 A.M. MT and ends June 30, 2021, at 11:59 P.M. MT.
Mermaids and Mayhem: A Young Adult Paranormal Romance
Written by Erin Hayes
I would say this book is more of a novella than a novel. At a little more than 150 pages, it is a good choice for middle grade readers who enjoy romance and paranormal genres. The protagonist is an eighteen-year-old young lady taking a year off before going off to study marine biology in college. Tara gets a summer job working for aquariums across the country. While in Houston, she undergoes a mysterious transformation in the seas.
Tara is transformed into a mermaid and she meets Finn. A romance soon develops. Now, enter the problem. Will Tara remain a sea creature and pursue her romance or will she return to land and resume her human life. Tara has always wanted to be a mermaid, but?????
Recommended as a quick read for readers ages ten and older.
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GREEK GODS: Myths, Legends and Ancient History 3rd edition
Written by Roy Jackson
This book of fewer than 100 pages is one of the easiest to follow that I have read on the subject. As a history major, I spent lots of time incorporating related studies in religion, literature, and culture. Most writers approach the subject of Greek gods in a genealogical fashion. Jackson’s approach is to classify them into groups according to the roles they performed. While he logically begins with the primordial deities followed by creation myths and the Titans, he rapidly moves on to the more familiar names of the Olympian Pantheon and some of the well-known myths. Homer’s gods of the underworld familiar to readers of the Odyssey are discussed as well as the sea gods like Poseidon so integral to a nation of seafaring inhabitants. Many religions were tied to the agricultural gods, Demeter, and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Jackson discusses Aesculapius, the god of medicine, as well as winged and sea creatures like the Sphinx, Minotaur, and Chimera.
This book is perfect for children in the middle grades who are intrigued with the folklore but do not want or need unnecessary details. It gives a solid foundation for readers who will later be better prepared to graduate to reading the classics. Recommended for readers ages eight and older.
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November 5, 2025
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