Father of Our Country: George Washington The First President by Sarah Albee

In 1776, the colonists in America declared independence from Britain. The two sides called it the American Revolution.

Of course, to King George and his subjects in Great Britain, it was a rebellion, and he sent warships, cannons, and more troops to put down the uprising in his largest colony.

The Americans needed an army, and for that they needed a general.

George Washington was the general who led the American army. He was brave and fair. 

After a long and difficult war, with some battles lost and some won, the British Army surrendered, and the Revolutionary leaders asked Washington to continue to lead the country. But Washington declined. He chose to return to Mt. Vernon, the farm in Virginia he had inherited from his brother Lawrence. He had married a widow, Martha Custis, with two children and even more land, and Washington wanted to become a successful planter.

He said, "I retire," he announced.

But the new country needed help, and Washington returned to public life to help write the Constitution and became the first president of the new United States, guiding the nation through two terms. Sarah Albee's George Washington: The First President (I Can Read Level 2) (Harper-Collins, 2017). This Level 2 beginning reader is a fine introduction to historical biography for early independent readers. It provides a full summary of Washington's life, including his family story, his early work for the British Crown and service with the British army in the French and Indians' War and his leadership in the formative days of the new American republic.

Illustrator Chin Ko supports Albee's narrative well with active and realistic illustrations with much visual information for young readers, and the book offers a substantial supportive appendix with a timeline of Washington's life, a special photo essay on slave life at Mt. Vernon, with a fascinating section on the black double agent spy who was part of Washington's critical spy network that helped win the war. This is a great book for classroom libraries and an informative and rather absorbing read for early primary students suitable for a biography or history report in that period leading up the Presidents Day.

He Made Me Do It! The Worst Class Trip Ever by Dave Barry

None of this stuff would have happened if I hadn't been sitting next to Matthew Diaz.

Don't get me wrong. Matt is my best friend. But he can be an idiot. When we were in kindergarten, pretty much all the boys were idiots, so he didn't stand out so much, and we became best friends. So now, even though we're in eighth grade, and he's sometimes unbelievably annoying, I'm kind of stuck with him.

That's why I ended up sitting next to him on the plane on the class trip.

It's time for the customary Miami middle school trip to Washington, D.C., and Wyatt Palmer's hopes are mostly centered around trying to win a smile from his crush, the tall and athletic Suzana, and spending a few days away from his sometimes embarrassing parents, especially his father, whose insistence on fetching the morning newspaper in his antique holey boxers gets him chased by an alligator, videoed by the inevitable neighbor's phone, and an appearance on a humiliating segment of the evening news. But Wyatt hopes that's all behind as he and Matt board the plane for the nation's capital.

But then two strange guys take their seats behind them.

One is small, wearing purple Crocs, and clinging to a backpack. The other is big, bald, with snake tattoos, blocking the aisle trying to stuff an odd-shaped duffle into the overhead compartment. The flight attendant, whom Wyatt describes as old enough to have been the Wright brothers' flight attendant, tells Croc Guy to stow his backpack under his seat for take-off. He refuses.

"Is very important."

Matt, who I believe I already mentioned can be an idiot, said--too loud, as usual--"What do you think he has in that bag? A missile?" The big guy looked down at Matt like he was about to stuff him into the overhead space.

Oblivious to the fact that he and Wyatt are marked men, Matt is convinced that the suspicious pair are terrorists, and reaching under his seat, he manages to fish a suspicious looking gizmo out of Croc Guy's backpack. A bit of googling at the hotel by their roommate Victor reveals that the device is indeed covert contraband, a stolen laser controller that jams incoming missiles. Just as the kids realize that Tattoo and Croc Guy must be terrorists on a deadly mission, the bad guys snatch Matt and hold him for ransom until the others fork over the jammer. The gorgeous and game Suzana is recruited to distract their clueless teacher to cover for Matt's absence on the tour bus, and she's the one who figures out that the two terrorists must be planning to assassinate the President and a visiting premier from Gabakistan in a Rose Garden press conference. The kids need give their chaperones the slip, rescue Matt, and foil the terrorists. They've got their cell phones, the terrorists' gizmo, and Suzana's extreme karate skills. What they seriously need is a plan.

And the chase is on, in Pulitzer-winning humorist Dave Barry's hilarious just-published killer-diller thriller, The Worst Class Trip Ever (Hyperion Books, 2015), which spotlights five eighth-graders in a plot to save the world and ends with Wyatt piloting a giant dragon kite, the missile jammer in hand, over the Rose Garden and.... Well, you gotta be there all the way to savor every comic turn of master humorist Dave Barry's plot in this page-turning, goofball adventure.

Barry is a blast, and middle readers who dote on his sometimes co-author Carl Hiaasen's Newbery winner Hoot and his top-selling eco-adventures Flush, Scat; Chomp, and Skink--No Surrender, (see reviews here) will find this one just the ticket for a literary tour that will end field trip boredom and the end-of-term blahs.

Moody's Mojo: Judy Moody and the Bad Luck Charm by Megan McDonald

"Check it out!" Judy held up a penny with a four-leaf clover inside a horseshoe that said MY LUCKY PENNY. MT. TRASHMORE, VA.

"That's not a lucky penny," said Stink. "That's a squashed penny. It looks like it got run over."

"It's still a lucky penny, Stink!" said Judy. "Says so right on it, see!"

Judy Moody is in a mood--a lucky mood. With the dubious Stink in tow, Judy charges across the restaurant to that machine known as THE CLAW, one of those kid traps that swallows their quarters and usually gives them a remote-control claw full of--nothing. But Judy is on a roll. She pulls out three--count 'em, Stink--three prizes in a row. Proof positive that her lucky penny works!

Judy Moody's mojo is working. She finds ten dollars stuck down in her box of Crazy Strips bandaids. At her sometime rival Jessica Finch's birthday party, she wins the X-treme Bowling Challenge, with three strikes in a row! At school on Monday she's still feeling lucky--lucky enough to predict that the scheduled spelling test is not going to happen--and she's right. Instead Mr. Todd announces the first in a series of spelling bees which will determine the school's contestant in the Great Third Grade Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.! Judy's not the class champ at spelling--that's Jessica Finch--but she's got that lucky penny in her pocket and she's got high hopes.

"Judy, said Mr. Todd, "your word is punctuate."

Punk-chew-ate! Punctuate was not an easy-peasy word. She looked around the room for help. Posters for grammar, spelling, and ... punctuation!

Holy Macaroni! This was her lucky day after all!

But Lady Luck is fickle, and when Judy's talisman takes an unfortunate tumble into the toilet, she's sure her run of good fortune is down the tubes. And to prove it, Jessica Finch wins the final round of the bee AND the trip to Washington. Judy's lucky penny is definitely P.U.!

Then Judy Moody's mojo makes an unexpected move. Jessica Finch invites Judy to go along to take care of her pot-bellied pig during the competition! The whole Moody family books a room at the same pet-friendly hotel, and Judy and Stink tour the historic sites of what Judy nicknames "Washington, District of Cool."

Judy is on a roll. Jessica's pet pig Pee Gee Wee Gee takes to her, and she and Stink are proving that they are perfect pig-nannies until--they decide to try out his special pig shampoo and discover that a soapy pig is a very slippery porker. Pee Gee escapes from his sitters, dashes out into the hall and zips into an elevator headed for the lobby. Judy is in a runaway pig pickle, and it looks like Lady Luck has at last taken it on the lam for good.

It's classic Judy Moody in her eleventh outing, Judy Moody and the Bad Luck Charm (Book #11) (Candlewick Press, 2012), with author Megan McDonald's spot-on third grade protagonist and Peter Reynold's comic illustrations along for the ride.

"Another enjoyable outing with the predictable Judy, just like a pleasant visit with an old friend," says Kirkus Reviews.