This book tells a story of a boy who has a dream that he has a money tree. He buys things for himself, and then people start to ask for their own money tree. He starts giving away money trees to everyone. However, he discovers that all the people stop working because they don't need money. They don't grow crops, construct buildings, or bake food. He starts starving. Then he wakes up and realizes it was all a dream. The book ends with a bible verse from Proverbs about how it's not important to become rich. Obviously, the book's message is about the danger of greed and lack of work. I think it is a great book for children to read because it gets rid of the notion our society enforces--that you should strive to move up in economic status. The illustrations were really good too. The community, depicted in the book, had a wide variety of people as far as age, ethnicity, and gender.

This story has the same plot as the original "Princess and the Pea" story. However, it is different because they played it up to be more dramatic and added sarcastic commentary. They made sarcastic comments about the standard for women and how they need a husband in order to function and how they must look proper all the time.   The book was also illustrated really differently. It seemed like it had real pictures in the background of walls and settings, but then the people were all drawn on paper. It pushed the limits for illustrations. I think young girls would really love this book, and I think it gives some good lessons. Like I stated previously, it gives sarcastic commentary on the typical princess situation, where the girl needs a man. They combat this in a sarcastic way, which could be refreshing for young girls.

This is a story about a little girl, Minnie, who doesn't get invited to a party. She hears classmates talking about a party at her best guy friend's house, Charles, so she waits all week in hopes of an invitation. It goes through each day, with her trying to get around the boy so he can hopefully remember to invite her to the party. She doesn't get invited, ends up getting sad, and goes to the house anyway. It turns out it's her friend's sister's party. The book is really interesting because of the plot line. I can imagine kids racing to the end to find out if she was going to get invited or not. The pictures are great too because they are vibrant colors against a white background and illustrate what is going on. However, the book did not have any non-white people in it. While kids might not notice it, it is something to think about.