Review: The Green Kingdom

By Cornelia Funke and Tammi Hartung

Illustrated by Melissa Castrillon

New York: DK Publishing, 2025. Fiction. 222 pages.

Caspia Turkel does NOT want to move to Brooklyn for the summer and leave her two best friends! It's unthinkable! However, when she arrives at the outdated apartment and finds an old hand-painted dresser in her bedroom, her feelings begin to change. Caspia discovers a treasure inside, 10 letters tied with a ribbon, that help her to grow roots in her new place. She forges new friendships and makes connections in her community as she searches for citizens of the Green Kingdom all around her.

This sweet story is all about curiosity and the joy that can come into our life when we are brave enough to follow it. The characters are kind, and support each other throughout. This is a great book for budding gardeners as there is quite a bit of information on different flowers and plants.

Comments

Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) by Pamela Espeland & Elizabeth Verdick

If there's one book today's kids need to read, it is Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) . The authors provide a fun format for teaching etiquette to children. They discuss proper behavior at home, at school, at other people's homes and in public places. The information is completely up-to-date with cellphone manners and netiquette included. Fun, cartoony illustrations are on practically every page giving the book great visual appeal. This book is perfect for boys and girls in the fourth grade or older. WARNING: Bodily functions are discussed.

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin Illustrated by Leslie Evans Charlesburg; 2009; unpaged Faces of the Moon is a short nonfiction book that describes the different phases of the moon and why the moon appears like it does on certain nights. This book is short and sweet so even the youngest of moon lovers will enjoy it. The layout is simplistic and easy to follow. I don’t know much about the moon so I found it very interesting.

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Provo Library Children's Book Blog

Search This Blog