Charlotte Zolotow Highly Commended

It's not bad, it's just weird. It's totally unrealistic, and this kind of thing would never happen, so it's certainly not a bad message. But the message more or less boils down to, "Pretend that other people are special even though you know they're really not."

I guess a kid who likes trucks might enjoy the book, but the language is so basic and there's so little of it there, and the art doesn't really make up for it, that it would get annoying to read to a kid repeatedly.

I mean, I've got nothing against books. Obviously, this is a book, and I read it, and reading is great, but you kinda need to keep an eye on kids, especially in a place as big and dangerous as a beach. So it's very realistic, but I wouldn't want to give kids the wrong idea, that it's okay to wander off at the beach.

It's a pretty heavy-handed message against greed. Playing with people is more fun than playing with objects. The message is true, but it's just very annoyingly presented.

Either the narrator is an idiot or a compulsive liar. I'm not sure which. On the plus side, the illustrations are interesting to look at. The children are very charmingly ambiguously racial.

It's a really good depiction of what it's like to lose someone. There's nothing religious to it, nothing existential, just a very relatable depiction of the pain you feel when someone dies.

Basically, the clam is in trouble, doesn't listen to anybody else, and then suddenly develops supernatural powers to get himself out of the situation. If that's not a deus ex machina, I don't know what is. But everybody's okay! Nobody dies!

This is the weirdest, most surreal book. After some antics with cake and raisins, you're supposed to look through the telescope backwards so the elephant is tiny, and then pick it up with the tweezers. And that's it. Okay...? It's basically a long, drawn-out illustration of a surreal joke.

The text kind of seems like something a little kid would say, and that's probably what he's going for as an author. But since it's all pictures of him, it makes it seem a lot more egotistical than it has to be.

It makes it seem like fortune cookies are real, but it doesn't explicitly say that. Instead of saying her fortune came true, it just says, "And guess what?" But the message basically boils down to fortune cookies being real.