The Great Smelly, Slobbery, Small-Tooth Dog retold by Margaret Read Macdonald

A story of the Language of Flowers wrapped in a fairy tale.

This folktale from Great Britian tells a somewhat familiar tale of a beast (in this case a big smelly slobbery dog) rescuing a man from peril. The man offers the beast whatever he wants and the beast wants his daughter. She goes away with him but hates him, often calling him a"big,smelly, slobbery, small-tooth dog" and hurts his feelings. However, in great folktale, fairy tale fashion, she eventually comes to love the big smelly dog and they live happily ever after.
Oh, forgot to mention, of course he turned into a prince once she declaired her love.
Personally, I might have wanted to keep the dog! But what's a fairy tale with out the prince!

The Langauage of Flowers is demonstrated on the endpapers with a pattern of the flowers and their emotion or meaning. Throughout the story, the painted tapestry-like illustrations include the flowers that correspond to the events in the story. Very pretty and an interesting way to show a nice aspect of British cultural.

One Well; The Story of Water on Earth by Rochelle Strauss

A timely title for our drought-ridden state this year. One Well is an enjoyable but urgent plea to save our planet's water supply. Short chapters with well-themed titles share the story that ALL things on earth are completely dependant on this non-renewable resource. "The amount of water on earth doesn't change - there's no more water now ...than when dinosaurs walked the earth." Interesting little factiods decorate each double page spread, sharing hard-to-imagine statistics and adding more urgency to the message.
The art didn't work for me though. It's very colorful and attractively done with a script-y font for chapter headings but the artwork's less structured nature fell flat for me. The blocks color used to get the extra facts in were distracting. A few spreads were broken in to blocks with small pictures to illustrate each fact, these seemed to work better than the larger illustrations that were broken up.
Overall, though, it is an attractive, readable, book with an important message. The back includes a section for students to plan ways to learn more or become active in water conservation. There is also a section for parents and teachers that offers even more inf. A very thorough index is included as well.