Guy Friday-- Miles Lewis: Track Star and Ultimate Spotlight: Cars

Lyons, Kelly Starling and Spencer, Wayne (illus.) Miles Lewis #4 Track Star 

August 29, 2023 by Penguin Workshop

Copy provided by Young Adult Books Central

Miles wants to be one of the top runners in the school Fun Run, but he finds that he can barely keep up with his Nana on his walks. He starts to pay attention to the different people in his life who have advice for his running. Even though he's rather eat treats like his classmates, he tries to pay attention to his nutrition. He goes on walks with his Nana, and runs early in the morning with his mother, who reminds him that "Slow and steady wins the race". He has a small dust up with his friend and bruises his leg, and worries that taking a couple of days off will hurt his chances of doing well. On the day of the race, he notices that his friend isn't doing well, and the two talk about the incident and make up. They end up racing each other to the finish line and feeling good about their progress.

I liked that while Miles found running to be hard, he didn't hate it. He thought about what he needed to do to be successful, and worked to get better. Even though this is a tiny bit young for my middle school, I have the first couple of books in the series for my emerging readers and will probably buy this one because it has such a great message.

Miles Lewis will be a huge hit with readers who enjoy short chapter books in series like Dillard and Robert's J. D. and the Barber Shop Battle, English's Carver Chronicles, Mills' Franklin School Friends, Wallace's Game Face books, or Greenwald's new Good Sports League. 

Dussaussois, Sophie and Caillou, Pierre (Illus.) Ultimate Spotlight: Cars

August 22, 2023 by Twirl

Copy provided by Young Adult Books Central

This pop-up book is packed with information about various aspect of cars. There are labels galore, and it's so much fun to open the car doors to see the interior labeled, or pull the tab to send a car through a factory assembly line! There's a great map with highways and main streets with highlights labeled, and even a fold down parking garage. The working stop light will enthrall young readers; that will be the first tab that wears out! My favorite pages might be the spread on car maintenance, where we can send a car up on a hydraulic lift to get the oil changed, and also have a dirty car come out the other side of a car wash clean and shiny. The final pop up is a car racing stadium with all its fans.

The colors are bright, and the pictures clean. Because there is so much text, the font is on the smaller side, but emerging readers will be more interested in the activity tabs than the prose at first.

There is a brief discussion about fossil fuels, and how there is a need to switch to other methods. This is illustrated with an electric vehicle that we are able to plug into a power station. This makes the book a snapshot of a very particular time, or at least I hope so. It would be great if this is dated in ten years because there are so many more EVs! The cars pictured look very European (they are small, with many hatchbacks, which are fantastic cars but harder to find in the US) which makes sense since this book was first published in France.

Young motor enthusiasts will love spending time with this book after reading similar titles like All About Cars by Krashiski and Latyk, van Dusen's If I Built a Car, Stein's Cars Galore, and Scarry's classic Cars and Trucks and Things That Go.