Book Review: My Favorite Sport: Baseball
Katie 
My Favorite Sport: Baseball, is a short book about the game of Baseball. First it talks a bit about what baseball is and how the game works. At the end of each section is a “Do You Remember” with a question about something that you learned from what you just read. There is also a glossary with some of the terms that you should know if you want to play and learn about baseball. This is a nice easy read for a kid who is just learning to read and loves sports.
I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.
About the Book
What’s your favorite sport?
In My Favorite Sport: Baseball students will learn all about America’s pastime. Each My Favorite Sport book includes engaging nonfiction text about the game, the field, the rules, the scoring, the equipment, and the skills needed to play the game.
Sample Text:
The batter steps up to the plate. The pitcher winds up. Crack! The ball is hit and the batter starts running.
I love to play baseball!
This book about Sharks is all about the different kinds of sharks in the ocean. There are more than 400 species out there but this book focuses on 20 of them. Different types of sharks can range in size from 6 inches to 40 feet!! Each chapter focuses on a different species and lets you know a few fast facts about them – like their length and weight and where in the world they are most commonly found. Then there is another fact about their teeth under the “Shark Bite Files”. I could probably have done without seeing so many creepy shark teeth throughout this book, but it was really interesting to see all the different types of sharks and what they look like.
The Picky Eater is about Piper. Otherwise she is a good student and a great little pig. But she is NOT a good eater – because she will only eat food that starts with the letter P! Her parents try to give her other things to eat but she always refuses. If they ask her to take 5 bites that is all she will take. Then she tells them what she would have preferred instead, that starts with a P. Rice should be Pasta. Apples should be Pears! Finally her Mother had enough and told her that if she didn’t want to eat she didn’t have to but she had to be silent. By Friday she started to try new foods because she was so hungry!
Unicorn Food: Natural Recipes for Edible Rainbows is everything that your colorful food eating self could ever desire. The aim is to eat a rainbow, but a healthy one. These recipes are both balanced and colorful and will delight your eyes as well as your taste buds. There are ways to make natural food coloring using cabbage, blueberry juice, tumeric, spinach, etc. I’m not exactly sure how these will end up making foods that taste delicious, but I’ll keep reading…
I have never made my own ice cream outside of Science class in High School and somehow ours came out tasting really salty. Make Your Own Ice Cream includes classic recipes for Ice Cream, Sorbet, Italian Ice, Sherbet and Other Frozen Desserts. The recipes all have very few ingredients, but the actual making of the ice cream seems to be a bit advanced – double boilers, using frying pans… I am not sure that I am ready for that kind of work, but some of these flavors do sound delicious! It starts out with Philadelphia Creams, then Neapolitan Creams, Ice Creams from Condensed Milk – that comes with a warning that these are not as good as those made from raw cream, Frozen Puddings and Desserts, Water Ices and Sherbets or Sorbets, Frozen Fruits, Frappes Parfaits and Mousses, and finally Sauces for Ice Creams.
Amazing Origami Boxes includes 20 origami models with instructions and diagrams. There are some really cool ones included – I can tell just from the cover! The book starts with the biography of Tomko Fuse – “the queen of modular origami” who wrote this book and came up with these amazing designs. The book has 3 degrees of difficulty – Medium, Medium to Advanced and Advanced. Each one is noted by 1, 2 or 3 dots. There are also guides to the different kinds of folds that you will find in the instructions. All of these designs seem to be a bit over my head, so I guess I am not quite at “Medium” level yet – probably still a “beginner”. The basket with triangular handles looks amazing, I thought the cube box was awesome – then I turned the page and there was a DOUBLE cube box… My mind is blown. And the Tulip cup and Rose box may be some of the pretties origami I’ve ever seen. Makes me wish I had some paper to try it out – even though I know I would end up failing miserably.
Ahh, Crochet. Something that I always say I want to learn to do but never do anything with it beyond reading books about it and looking at the pretty pictures. This time I am reading all about how to make various crochet flowers. The book contains 30 fabulous flowers and projects. Most of these flowers are done with a loom, which might be a bit easier for me to figure out… even though it features a handful of different kinds of looms. It then goes in to talk about what kinds of yarns you should use as well as colors – this page was especially interesting because it showed the same flower made with 12(!) different color sets and they all looked wildly different from each other. Then it goes into different techniques for different flowers. BRB, buying myself a loom, these are all so pretty!!!! It also features some crochet techniques as well. These all go over my head but there are photos included with the instructions so if you have any idea what you are doing it should be easy to follow the stitching instructions. Then you can join everything together to make really fun flowery things like doilies or I suppose even blankets if you have enough flowers made!