by Daniel Acer

Daniel Acer’s book, aimed a slightly older reading audience than Boredom Busters, offers a number of ways in which kids can amaze and astonish themselves and their friends. How? Taking phony UFO photos, turning themselves into headless zombies (using an amazing illusion), making fake Bigfoot footprints, filming a lake monster video, and various other illusionary and magic tricks are presented with illustrated, step-by-step directions. For each hoax, a list of required materials – if any – is provided.

Sound like fun? The whole family can enjoy and participate in the activities of this book, which is based on the television series Mystery Hunters, produced by YTV and Discovery Networks International.

** Recommended for ages 9 to 12 years.
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by Helaine Becker

The sub-title of this book, Brain Bogglers, Awesome Activities, Cool Comics, Tasty Treats, and More hints at the fun to be found in this gem. Easy-to-follow recipes and instructions for games, crafts and recipes, and plenty of quizzes, jokes and brain bogglers, are provided – plus lots of wacky and astounding facts. Kids can make monster footprints, fortune cookies, bread bag tag racers or gross-out gummy worms. They can play “Fortune Bingo”, decipher secret messages, discover some cool calculator tricks, play “Star Warts”, and even learn some simple magic tricks.

As the author states, this is the book to consult if you are sick of watching the grass grow, if you have lost count of the ceiling tiles in your house, or if your thumbs are tired of twiddling! “Whether you use it on your own or with friends, Boredom Blasters will save the day. It’s a superhero, it’s a book … it’s your new best friend!”

“How did so much fun get into one book?” is what children and parents will wonder after perusing this publication!

** Recommended for ages 7 to 11 years.
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by Meredith Phillips

Why do cats purr? Why are they often more responsive to women’s voices than men’s? How do they almost always manage to land on their feet, and do they really like to drink milk?

Meredith Phillips’ attractive book, one of the Pet’s Point of View books for children, will supply the answers to these questions and provide many more intriguing facts about cats as well. Did you know that cats groom themselves for more than one quarter of the time that they are awake, and that they mark their territory by rubbing their faces on things or people? Did you know that cats have trouble digesting sugar, that a cat can leap about six times the length of its body, and that the record for the largest litter is nineteen kittens?

Cat Chat provides an opportunity for children to learn about their feline friend from its point of view, using fun facts, attractive photos, instructions on basic cat care, a glossary and a timeline of significant events in the history of cats.

** Recommended for ages 5 to 10 years.
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Sometimes the biggest changes in our world begin in the smallest ways. Katie Smith Milway’s story relates how the purchase of one small hen changed an African community.

In a small village in Ghana, young Kojo and his widowed mother were just able to survive by gathering and selling firewood. One day, given a small loan, Kojo bought a hen to provide them with eggs. He sold the extra eggs at the market, repaid his loan, and eventually saved enough to buy another hen, then another, and another, and so on. After a while, Kojo earned enough money to pay his school fees as well. He attended school and obtained a bank loan, using it to establish a poultry farm near his village. As the farm grew, it employed others, enabling them – like Kojo and his mother – to leave poverty behind. With the taxes paid by Kojo and his employees, the whole community benefited. As the author states, “Change can happen, one person at a time.”

Was there a real Kojo? Yes: some years ago, Kwabena Darko, a boy living in the Ashanti region of Ghana, helped his mother to support his family. Winning a scholarship to attend an agricultural college in Israel, he studied poultry science, returned to Ghana and with some difficulty, obtained a loan to start a poultry farm. The farm eventually employed many others, and flourished, as did his community. Kwabena then established the Sinapi Aba Trust to provide microloans to others. The Trust grew. In a single year, 2006, it provided loans to 50,000 Ghanaians to establish small businesses such as raising small livestock, sewing, selling firewood, etc. The lives of thousands of people from many communities were transformed. Today, Sinapi Aba is part of the global nonprofit microfinance organization, Opportunity International.

The author of One Hen, Katie Smith Milway, was formerly a co-ordinator of community development programs in Africa and Latin America for the global organization, Food for the Hungry International.
One Hen was illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes, of Ontario, one of Canada ’s foremost children’s picture book author-illustrators.

Note: The copy of One Hen reviewed above was given to Stratford Public Library CEO Sam Coghlan as a registrant at Stratford’s Canada 3.0 Forum, June 8 and 9.

** Recommended for ages 5 to 10 years.
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Anyone who thinks that Ontario hasn’t experienced its share of disasters may be convinced otherwise after reading Rene Biberstein’s Disasters of Ontario!
Quite a number of devastating events have actually occurred in our fair province.

Tornados? Consider the Windsor Tornado of June 1946, which claimed 14 victims and injured 155, or the Barrie Tornado of 1985.

Shipwrecks? Read about the Edmund Fitzgerald, the biggest freighter on the Great Lakes until 1972. It sank on November 10, 1975, in a Lake Superior squall; all 29 crew members perished.

Evacuations? You may remember the 1979 derailment of a train carrying deadly chemicals through Mississauga, which caused the second-largest evacuation ever to take place in North America - after Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.

Fires? The Cochrane District Fire in the summer of 1916 destroyed not only the town of Cochrane, but Iroquois Falls , Kelso, Matheson, Porquis Junction, Nushka and other communities as well. Tragically, a number of people suffocated when they took shelter in enclosed wells and root cellars.

The list continues: in all, 75 disasters – including mine collapses, floods, bridge collapses, deadly epidemics and many more marine disasters on the Great Lakes - are described in fascinating detail in this book.

** Recommended for ages 9 years and up.
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Inside Hockey! The Legends, Facts, and Feats that Made the Game, by Keltie Thomas, 64 pages.
@ SPL: J 796.962 Tho
As the NHL playoffs approach, kids can delve into the wild world of professional hockey with this book, which is packed full of hockey facts, inventions, personalities, anecdotes, stories, legends, adventures, photos and humour – of interest both to those who know a great deal about NHL hockey and to those who do not. Some of the practical jokes and hijinks that are a part of NHL history and legend are also included, and girls will appreciate that women’s hockey has also been addressed in Keltie Thomas’ latest sports book. Readers can even discover what types of good luck charms have been used through the years by various hockey players.
Readers will find the “inside scoop” on the dazzling careers of some of hockey’s greatest heroes, such as Maurice “Rocket” Richard, Sidney Crosby, Mark Messier, Phil Esposito and the “Board Street Bullies”. Perhaps best of all is the “Strange but True” section of bizarre stories: after reading it, the reader will agree that just about anything can happen in the world of hockey!
Keltie Thomas is a Toronto-based writer for children who has previous books about hockey, snowboarding, basketball, soccer, and baseball to her credit.
** Recommended for ages 8 to 13 years.
Click here to find Inside Hockey! The Legends, Facts, and Feats that Made the Game in our online catalogue.

The first step is to understand the concepts and causes of climate change and pollution; the next step is to take steps toward reducing these threats to our world. You Can Save the Planet provides fifty practical suggestions to children and families – small steps which, if taken by many, become large steps. Did you know that many household appliances such as DVD players, if switched off by a remote control, go on standby and continue to use a considerable amount of electricity? Did you know that only about 5% of discarded cell phones are recycled, and that the rest go into the garbage, leaching toxic materials such as cadmium and mercury into the ground? How can every household reuse paper, avoid using plastic bags and other packaging, and reduce household water usage?
Some of the suggestions made in this book will be old news to adults but perhaps not to children … besides, with the current state of our planet, some of the ideas need to be repeated again and again … and again. You Can Save the Planet is an essential and upbeat resource for children and their families.
** Recommended for ages 7 to 11 years.
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Canadian children’s author Jan Thornhill’s skills in explaining issues in an easy-to-understand way that will interest children, are very much in evidence in her 2007 publication, This is My Planet. What exactly is meant by the term “global warming” (especially after this winter’s cold temperatures)? What causes global warming, and why is it so detrimental to people, plants, birds, animals and sea life? What results of climate change can we expect to see in the future? And what are some up-to-date web sites with further information for children? Jan Thornhill’s thoughtful and colorfully-illustrated book offers answers to all of these questions – from a Canadian perspective.
** Recommended for ages 7 to 10 years.