Astra Books For Young Readers

The Strangest Fish is an odd-joy of an illustrated book

What a simple tale The Strangest Fish is. It will sound familiar to young, read-aloud audiences in elementary school, both in its setting and in its very subtle lesson. A young girl is at the fair with her family when she receives a fish who is happily unaware of the size of its plastic bag aquarium. It’s a beautiful fish that they name October, who quickly outgrows his arrangements. This all sounds familiar, the fish-out-of-water, except those who aren’t like you premise that savvy readers can detect from far away. That’s us too, but before you put this in the same tank with other, less intelligent, classy or interesting books, check out the art.

The Strangest Fish is an illustrated book that charms the status quo on a fish-out-of-water tale that excels due the grand art and timeless story.

One fish, weird fish, catch my interest you

Skybound!, a non-fiction, entrepreneurial illustrated book is easy to love

Why do we read? There’s a poster in a class that I’m teaching now that lists Great Reasons to Read. Yeah, that list might seem passé or obligatory, but for a group of high school students who would sooner watch paint dry, so long as it’s on their cell phone, they need to be reminded as to what reading can do for their ever-growing brains. Skybound! Starring Mary Myers as Carlotta, Daredevil Aeronaut and Scientist check off every one of the things listed on that list, if such a list exists for elementary school ages. Spoiler alert: that list exists and it’s the same one that’s in the high school class; it’s just that young audiences like elementary school readers need to have it presented with a little more panache, enthusiasm, and show.

Skybound! is the sort of illustrated book that is easy to love. The story is loaded with action, unbelievable exploits, descriptive text and non-fiction thrills.

Solid Gold was much more than a comeback

Simone has promise and a great story, but a side agenda of obvious also

Children almost certainly don’t think of books as a gateway to a different world or an opportunity to learn something in a second-hand, entertaining manner. Granted, those two takeaways are a major reason why people enjoy reading books, but to some young elementary ages books are more of a thing that you have to do, and doing things under duress is very rarely cool. Simone is not the first illustrated book that mid to upper-elementary students will look for. Its indistinct cover implies nothing about the book’s plot. All you see is an Asian girl with a sketchbook and paintbrushes, wistfully looking out as waves of colors bend ahead of her.

Simone has beautiful art and a unique, approachable story, but comes with a lesson or agenda that elementary ages know ad nausea.

The art is effective, the story is ok

A Tour of the Human Body, factoid fun for grades 1-4

For a period in every elementary student’s life, they are factoid machines. They have competition between themselves to seek out and parrot one or two-line facts about animals, the more disgusting, bizarre or unknown, the better. This is the age of the exception. Kids may not be able to tell you how many ounces are in a pound, but they’ll be able to tell you at a moment’s notice that you swallow an average of 1,500 pounds of food a year. A Tour of the Human Body: Amazing Numbers-Fantastic Facts is an illustrated book that introduces elementary-aged students to this bag of flesh, organs and bones that accommodate us during our time on Earth.

A Tour of the Human Body is an illustrated book that introduces this complex bag of bones and muscles to kids aged 5-9.

Factoids, the life blood of early elementary shool kids