Reviews – Page 20 – BookBunnies

Caramel reviews Japanese Myths, Legends, and Folktales by Yuri Yasuda

Last summer Caramel read several books on Asian myths and legends. Today he is talking to Sprinkles about one of these: Japanese Myths, Legends and Folktales: Bilingual English and Japanese Edition, written by Yuri Yasuda, illustrated by Yoshinobu Sakakura and Eiichi Mitsui, and published in 2019.

Sprinkles: So Caramel, this is one of your last reviews before we take off for the summer. What do you want to talk about today?

Caramel: It’s this book on Japanese myths and legends. I like all of the nice stories, and the pictures. The colors are nice.

S: You are right, there are a lot of illustrations in this book. Each page has at least one. And they are very stylized. That is, they all kind of fit in one style, they resemble one another in some ways.

C: That makes sense though. It is all the same people who drew them. So it makes sense they would look like one another.

S: True.

C: And they are all very colorful and they use some really cool drawing techniques!

S: That is a good observation Caramel! I agree with you! Now tell me a bit more about the stories.

C: There are twelve stories. Each of them takes about three to five pages, usually below ten. On each page there is a picture or two, and then the top of the page is in English. And in the second half of the page the story is in Japanese.

S: Oh, part of the book is in Japanese then! I guess it makes sense: the book is subtitled “The Bilingual Edition” after all.

C: Well, actually, it’s called, “Bilingual English and Japanese Edition”.

S: Thank you for the correction Caramel. That makes total sense. But you don’t know how to read in Japanese. Was that okay?

C: Well, I don’t know how to read in Japanese YET. But yes, it was more than okay. It was cool to see the difference in the writing. Japanese people use a different alphabet than us. Or rather three different writing systems. I looked it up. There is a long Wikipedia article about it. And we tried to learn a bit of Japanese last summer. It is hard but it is also a lot of fun. I loved using the brush pens!

S: Yes, that was a lot of fun! And you are so right in saying that you don’t know it YET. You are still such a young bunny, maybe you will learn it at some point.

C: I hope so. I especially want to play more with the brush pens, mostly the pens.

S: Sounds like a plan to me!

Caramel is reading Japanese Myths, Legends, and Folktales by Yuri Yasuda. — Caramel is reading *Japanese Myths, Legends, and Folktales* by Yuri Yasuda.

S: Okay, so let us get back to the stories. You said there are twelve of them. So tell us a bit about a couple of them. Maybe your favorites?

C: I liked the first one, “The Tongue-Cut Sparrow”. It’s about a kind old man who finds an injured sparrow and saves it. One day as he is out doing something, the sparrow eats the house flour, so the old man’s wife cuts the sparrow’s tongue off as punishment, and the sparrow flies off. Then on another day, the old man goes walking, and he meets the sparrow again. The old man was always kind to the bird, so the sparrow offers him some gifts. The old man takes the smaller gift and walks home to find that it has money. But his wife is not a nice person and she is greedy too so she gets upset that her husband did not get the bigger gift. So the next day she takes off to find the sparrow and asks for the bigger gift. The sparrow gives her the bigger gift and tells her not to open it until she is home. But she does open it before she gets home, and the demons inside the box attack her. Finally the old kind man finds her and saves her and the wife apologizes for being mean and unkind and they all forgive each other and live happily ever after.

S: Hmm. What do you think the story means?

C: I think the moral of the story is that if you are given a gift, and told not to open it till home, then you should not open it till home.

S: I can see how that could be one of the messages you get. Anything else?

C: You should not be selfish or greedy? And ask for the bigger gift? Bigger is not always better.

S: That too could be a good lesson.

C: Yes, and maybe being kind is always a good thing? The old man was kind to the bird and he was rewarded for it even though he was not being kind to get a reward.

S: All true. Very good Caramel! I like these messages! And apparently this is a well-known story. There is even a Wikipedia article on it.

C: I am not surprised. The book is supposed to be about myths and legends, and those are probably all well known.

S: You do have a good point there Caramel. Can you tell us the names of some of the other stories?

C: Here is the full list: The Strong Boy, The Marriage of a Mouse, The Fisherman and the Tortoise, The Luminous Princess, The Peach Boy, The Kachi Kachi Mountain, The Old Man With Wens, The Old Man Who Made Trees Blossom, The One-Inch Boy, The Lucky Cauldron, and The Monkey-and-Crab Fight.

S: What is that last one about?

C: There is a crab who wants some peaches and asks for help from a monkey but the monkey cheats him and steals all the peaches.

S: So these stories are somewhat different from the fairy tales you grew up with, right?

C: Yes very much so. There are lessons to learn in these too, but sometimes the lessons are a bit harder to see.

S: Maybe because we did not grow up in Japan, the cultural context is not as transparent to us.

C: Maybe. But I really liked these stories. They are all somewhat different but also very interesting. Kind of surprising and definitely fun to read.

S: So I am guessing you would not mind it if other young bunnies read this book too?

C: Mind it? Of course not. In fact I would say they should read it. And maybe also look at the pictures and also the Japanese text below. I will learn how to read it one day, hopefully.

S: Sounds like a good goal, Caramel. Okay, this is a good time to wrap up this review. What do you want to tell our readers?

C: Stay tuned for more book bunny reviews!

Caramel enjoyed reading Japanese Myths, Legends, and Folktales by Yuri Yasuda and recommends it to all curious little bunnies who want to learn about the many different stories young bunnies around the world grow up with. — Caramel enjoyed reading *Japanese Myths, Legends, and Folktales* by Yuri Yasuda and recommends it to all curious little bunnies who want to learn about the many different stories young bunnies around the world grow up with.

Marshmallow reviews Beautiful News by David McCandless

Today Marshmallow chose to review a beautiful book of infographics by David McCandless published in 2022, aptly named Beautiful News: Positive Trends, Uplifting Stats, Creative Solutions.

Marshmallow reviews Beautiful News: Positive Trends, Uplifting Stats, Creative Solutions by David McCandless. — Marshmallow reviews *Beautiful News: Positive Trends, Uplifting Stats, Creative Solutions* by David McCandless.

Marshmallow’s Quick Take: If you want hope (or if you simply like pretty pictures displaying lots of cool information), then this is the book for you!

Marshmallow’s Summary (with Spoilers): In today’s status quo, things are looking grim. Everyday everyone looks at the news and sees only darkness. Every headline promises impending doom, but each one is terrifying in its own separate way. Isn’t it great!?! More seriously though, this is a daily occurrence that everyone, regardless of the news and media type they consume (CNBC, CNN, Fox, New York Times… they are all extremely depressing), experiences. This is mostly due to a phenomenon known as negativity bias. But no matter how natural, the end result is universal hopelessness and—quite frankly—rampant depression. Birth rates are falling as youth start to equate having children to condemning them to a horrific future. But amidst this barrage of fear, sadness, and anger (all of which is undeniably present and must be recognized), there is also hope. Hope may initially feel like a fragile concept, but this book helps back it up with statistics and data.

The author David McCandless has compiled exactly what is written on the first page: “positive trends, uplifting stats, creative solutions.” After the table of contents, each page or two is a spread of data, with brilliant colors and clear infographics (a portmanteau word smashing together “information” and “graphics”). The book is divided into sections based on what topic the information is about. The sections are titled as follows: health, cleaner energy, progress, climate, money, nice!, nature, mixed, freedom and rights, women and girls, what to do?, and cool tech.

Every page in this book is bright and cheery and truly provides reasons to stay hopeful. For example, one beautiful graph shows that “Far More Unites Us Than Divides Us.” Apparently, between countries, 84% is the percent average similarity in common values between groups. Between religions, it’s 91%; between rich and poor, and between education levels, and between age groups, it’s 96%. Between genders, it’s 97%. This is just one example from the more-than-200 pages in this book! At the end, there is also a map of the world and each country is labeled with something that makes it special and good. This book truly is a candle—like the author’s name—in the dark.

Marshmallow is reading Beautiful News: Positive Trends, Uplifting Stats, Creative Solutions by David McCandless. — Marshmallow is reading *Beautiful News: Positive Trends, Uplifting Stats, Creative Solutions* by David McCandless.

Marshmallow’s Review: I love this book! I have read so many amazing books, but this is my favorite one because it really embodies hope. I think I will definitely return to this book over and over again. If you can’t tell, I would highly recommend this book. I think it is great to read for oneself, but I think it could also make an amazing gift to a worried friend or source material to comfort them with facts to prove that there is always hope. (Here is one of my other favorite books about hope: I have already reviewed it for this blog. That was more of a narrative of hope however. This book just gives you proof! Colorful visuals and data! What more could one ask for?)

I was very small when I decided that hope is something one should always have, even when it seems false. What’s the point in giving up? Nothing is ever absolute. I think this book is really good because it shows that you don’t even need to follow that stubborn logic. There are reasons to have hope already.

I think everyone should be given a copy of this book. The only problem is that, being written 2022, the data is not the most recent. But the fact that most show trends of even longer periods of time is still encouraging. This can’t fix all existential dread or depression, but it can spark a bit of hope that can be nursed into a flame.

On this topic, if you cannot read this book for any reason, try visiting the Good News Network—an American online newspaper that focuses on good news only. So, in summary, I would highly recommend reading this book and treasuring it forever… but I would recommend keeping hope even more.

Marshmallow’s Rating: 150%. Yes, I am that excited about this book!

Marshmallow rates Beautiful News: Positive Trends, Uplifting Stats, Creative Solutions by David McCandless 150%! — Marshmallow rates *Beautiful News: Positive Trends, Uplifting Stats, Creative Solutions* by David McCandless 150%!

Caramel reviews Great Minds and Finds in Antarctica by Robin Koontz

Today Caramel is talking to Sprinkles about Great Minds and Finds in Antarctica by Robin Koontz, first published in 2021.

Sprinkles: So Caramel, what do you have for us today?

Caramel: We have a book about the coolest place in the world.

S: And where would that be?

C: Antarctica!

S: Oh I think you were being a bit punny, weren’t you?

C: Yep, I was. Antarctica is cool because it is interesting, but also it is very very very cold, so doubly cool!

S: I like that! So okay, the book is about Antarctica. So it is a book of facts, right?

C: Yep, it’s mostly facts, my favorite.

S: Yay! So what was a fun fact you learned in this book?

C: I learned that in Antarctica, they have this thing called the Antarctic hair grass.

S: What’s that?

C: It’s a type of grass, and I find it cool because they look like a person’s hair if it was green..

S: I guess that is why they are called hair grass. Wikipedia says they are one of only two species of flowering plants native to Antarctica.

C: That is cool too!

S: What else did you learn from the book?

C: Many many things. For example, some really cool animals live in Antarctica, like the yeti crab, which has hairy arms.

S: I knew that some penguins lived there, but I did not know about the yeti crabs. They do look weird!

C: A lot of other weird things live there, too. Another one is the skua. It is a bird, looks kind of like a pigeon.

S: I did not know about the skua either! Apparently, it is kind of a vicious bird. It kills penguin babies.

C: Oh, yeah, that’s not cool. They are predators and so are very aggressive. But they too have their own predators. It is a wild world out there.

Caramel is reading Great Minds and Finds in Antarctica by Robin Koontz. — Caramel is reading *Great Minds and Finds in Antarctica* by Robin Koontz.

S: Agreed. So let us get back to the book itself. Is the book a random collection of facts about Antarctica or is there some sort of an organization?

C: Well, there are chapters, and many of them are really cool. For example, the first one is: “Where in the World is Antarctica?”

S: That makes sense, to start with the geographic location.

C: Yes. Then there is the second chapter, called “Giant Ice and Extreme Life”. There is a chapter on “Ancient Remains”, a chapter called “A Mysterious Continent”, another called “Protecting Icy Life”. The others are called “Life Underwater”, “Changing Climate”, and “Amazing Antarctica”.

S: That sounds like a good spread of topics. But I am curious. What is “A Mysterious Continent” about?

C: It is about how the first European people to explore Antarctica thought it was haunted, because of the cold.

S: That is interesting. So kind of like a brief history of its discovery. Is the chapter “Ancient Remains” also about history then?

C: Yes, but it is even more ancient history, like the animals frozen in the ice from many centuries ago.

S: That is cool! Okay so it seems like this was a good book for you, with so many facts. Did you know that the same author has several other books in this same series called “Discoveries Around the World”, and the whole series has one book for each continent?

C: Oh, I didn’t know that! Maybe we can read some of those other books, too.

S: Yeah, I will see if we can get a hold of any of the others. It is kind of nice to think about the world in terms of its continents. Not countries and national borders and such but purely geographical and physical borders.

C: Yep, isn’t it cool? That is how we bunnies see the world. Maybe humans could too, one day.

S: Oh Caramel! How I wish! Okay, so last question about the book. It looks like a very colorful one with lots of pictures. Can you tell us a bit about the pictures? Are they hand-drawn illustrations or photographs or maps?

C: They are mostly pictures, but they have some drawings, too. They are, as you said, all very colorful. And I thought they were informative. I learned a lot.

S: What more could one ask of a book? Thanks Caramel. I think we have enough for a post. Let us wrap this up.

C: Okay. I can always go and read another book.

S: Sure. So what do you want to tell our readers as we wrap it up?

C: Stay tuned for more book bunny reviews!

Caramel enjoyed reading Great Minds and Finds in Antarctica by Robin Koontz and recommends it to all little bunnies who are curious about the world. — Caramel enjoyed reading *Great Minds and Finds in Antarctica* by Robin Koontz and recommends it to all little bunnies who are curious about the world.

Marshmallow reviews Sweet Valley Twins: The Graphic Novel (Best Friends and Teacher’s Pet) by Nicole Andelfinger and Claudia Aguirre

A few years ago, Marshmallow read and reviewed Kristy’s Great Idea (The Baby-Sitters Club Graphic Novels #1) written by Ann M. Martin in the 1980s and 1990s and adapted into a graphic novel by Raina Telgemeier in 2006. Today she is reviewing Sweet Valley Twins: The Graphic Novel by Nicole Andelfinger and Claudia Aguirre, another book whose origins lie in a beloved book series from the 1980s written by Francine Pascal. The edition she is writing about combines the first two books, Best Friends and Teacher’s Pet, in one volume and was published just this year, in 2025. Other artists who contributed to the book include Sara Hagstrom, Andrea Bell, and Warren Montgomery.

Marshmallow’s Quick Take: If you like books about friendship, sisters, family, and drama, then this is the book for you!

Marshmallow’s Summary (with Spoilers): Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield are identical twins. In Best Friends, they start off as each other’s best friend. But like all middle-school aged girls and all book characters of that age, the two have started changing. In my opinion though, the one who is changing more is Jessica. Jessica has become increasingly more interested in boys and popularity, which is natural to an extent. Unfortunately, she has been recruited to join the Unicorns (which is a lot like the Plastics from Mean Girls). In order to get in, Jessica has to prove herself by completing three dares. Elizabeth is more interested in the Sweet Valley Sixers, the school newspaper she founded with her other friends Amy Sutton and Julie Porter. Both Elizabeth and Jessica thought they would be closer than ever in middle school, but they are growing apart instead.

In Teacher’s Pet, the focus is on their shared ballet classes. Jessica dresses to impress the first day, only to discover that their strict teacher Madame André is not a fan of her style. It is on that day that Jessica decides the teacher hates her. On the other hand, Elizabeth has no problem with the teacher, who actually really likes her. Jessica—who believes she is the best ballet dancer in the class—decides that Madame André picks favorites and that Elizabeth is a teacher’s pet. So when Elizabeth gets the solo for the rehearsal, Jessica is pretty jealous. Can the sisters overcome their differences? (Spoiler: The answer is predictably yes, but in a way that I was not too pleased with.)

Marshmallow is reading Sweet Valley Twins: The Graphic Novel (Best Friends and Teacher’s Pet) by Nicole Andelfinger and Claudia Aguirre. — Marshmallow is reading *Sweet Valley Twins: The Graphic Novel* (Best Friends and Teacher’s Pet) by Nicole Andelfinger and Claudia Aguirre.

Marshmallow’s Review: I think these books are really good, especially for young girls in middle school who are noticing behavioral changes in themselves or others. This book is a graphic novel and has two of the Sweet Valley Twins books in one. The Sweet Valley Twins books were originally written in 1986. I think it’s worth noting that there are no discussions about changing bodies in these books so the focus is more on how people’s personalities and interests change. That said, I was a little unhappy with the dynamic between Elizabeth and Jessica. I’ll preface this by saying I liked Elizabeth more due to her sweet, smart personality. I think the way Jessica changes is definitely normal and understandable too. But Jessica also changes in ways that are less excusable: she bullies other girls, pulls pranks on others, and is extremely self-centered. Jessica literally says she is the best dancer to her sister’s face—several times. I think this shows that she is a worse person, or at least doesn’t care so much about others. Yet, at the end of the second book (SPOILER), Jessica is the one given the solo lead role because Elizabeth fakes being injured. Why does Elizabeth give Jessica the role? Because Jessica complains about how she deserves it more and how she is better at ballet than everyone else until Elizabeth gives in and starts thinking she doesn’t deserve it either. I think it’s really good to have an accurate representation of sibling relationships in books, but I don’t like how the authors had the book end in a way that shows one of the sisters giving something they really wanted to the other just because the other one is jealous. I think that was a pretty messed-up ending and I don’t find that fair. I think Jessica definitely needs support, especially since she is so desperate to be viewed as popular and get validation. But the fact that she consistently bullies others and tears her sister down to get that is not okay. I think Jessica is portrayed too well in the book. So I definitely think this book is good to read for young girls. But I think parents and the readers should have a discussion about what a healthy relationship should be like, because Jessica’s behavior is not what should be normalized or idealized.

After I wrote the paragraphs above, I read this review of the second book in its original, which seems to imply that Jessica is clearly the better dancer and the teacher is really playing favorites and has poor judgment. That is not quite the impression one gets in the graphic novel version. Even if Jessica is more naturally inclined, Elizabeth is just as good though possibly with more instruction and practice. So to me, the teacher choosing one over the other does not seem like a big unfair thing. Jessica on the other hand does not handle things well and really comes across as a spoiled brat.

The graphic novel is otherwise a lot of fun to read. The colors and the characters’ depictions work really well. I did keep thinking back to all my favorite books by Raina Telgemeier, especially Drama. If you are up for a solid couple hours of fun reading about middle school blues, this book can be a good choice.

Marshmallow’s Rating: 92%.

Marshmallow rates Sweet Valley Twins: The Graphic Novel (Best Friends and Teacher’s Pet) by Nicole Andelfinger and Claudia Aguirre 92%. — Marshmallow rates *Sweet Valley Twins: The Graphic Novel* (Best Friends and Teacher’s Pet) by Nicole Andelfinger and Claudia Aguirre 92%.