This short introduction to anime, like the genre itself, diverges in many directions. Six chapters highlight aspects of the industry, beginning with “The Anime Renaissance,” a chapter establishing the contemporary context of Japanese animation. The author argues that anime is central to Japanese culture; the robot cat Doraemon holds an official government position as “anime ambassador.” Internationally, the streaming service Crunchyroll has played a huge part in bringing anime to viewers outside Japan. Later chapters explore stylistic features of anime, the world of anime voice acting, anime’s influence on international animation culture, cosplay, and 2.5D adaptations of animated shows as live-action plays. The final chapter on fan culture centers on the ongoing popularity of Pokémon video games and trading cards and the growing worldwide demand for licensed character merchandise. Overall, this work feels incomplete, and the audience is unclear. There are curiosity-inducing points that will encourage deeper research, but for an introductory reference guide, it assumes more knowledge than readers new to the topic may have and lacks the robust historical perspective and artistic analysis that would make it a stronger resource. Each chapter is loosely organized; end-of-chapter summaries would have supported greater comprehension of the material. For young anime fans, this work only scratches the surface.

Addressing, like the other volumes in this series, “mission-ready” younger readers, Eason surveys threats ranging from modern whaling to climate change, abandoned fishing nets, and plastics pollution. She supplements an overview of conservation-related careers with vignettes featuring children who describe personal actions such as small-scale beach cleanups. Messy page design impedes the presentation; a jumble of text boxes, some askew, in various hues are placed on each spread over color photos of different sorts of whales—and also other threatened varieties of sea life, mostly mammals. Still, all the glimpses of appealingly posed whales, whale babies, and other animals will crank up reader empathy, and the twin messages come through clearly enough of the pressing need for action, and that we can all do our part, from making simple changes in our daily behavior to pursuing actual jobs in the field. Most of the appended websites are career-oriented, but the backmatter also includes resources for the intended younger audience.

It may seem premature to promote careers in wildlife conservation in an appeal aimed at a younger primary-grade audience, but Eason forges ahead anyway. She addresses “mission-ready” readers in her introduction and finishes with lines of relevant work from trained scientist to field guide, filmmaker, and even public relations specialist. In between, she engagingly positions chimpanzees as our closest living relatives, intelligent and feeling. The author tallies a range of threats to their existence, from human-spread diseases, poaching for bushmeat, and the effects of climate change to habitat loss due to logging, agriculture, and mining. Though the pages are crowded with boxes of bite-size narrative, close-up photos of chimps with cameos of gorillas, pygmy hippos, and other forest neighbors are wedged in to add visual appeal. Smiling “Kids on a Mission” pop into view periodically to suggest hands-on ways of supporting conservation efforts; a bulleted “Take Action” list offers further ideas. The generous backmatter includes age-appropriate resources as well as leads to career-oriented websites.

“You may not realize it, but lenders don’t just hand out money, it always comes at a price.” Should a guide to credit cards and loans be any less direct? This book, which is chock-full of practical advice around how to pay bills on time, shop using discounts, and cut back on spending to meet one’s budget, is a helpful toolbox for fledgling young adult consumers. Sanderson acknowledges credit card rewards and perks but offers more frequent warnings about the consequences of credit misuse. Following the primer on credit cards is a section about all kinds of loans, including installment, personal, auto, student, and mortgage. The book covers snowball and avalanche methods of paying off debt along with debt consolidation. Photos, graphics, and text boxes appear throughout, breaking up the chunks of text into digestible nuggets. Recap pages helpfully remind readers of the main ideas they’ve encountered in each section, providing a handy lifeline for readers who may blanch at financial concepts, vocabulary, and equations for figuring out interest. A warning about raising one’s credit limit raises a minor contradiction over advice about credit utilization ratios, but otherwise this is a sound manual for getting one’s bearings about debt.

Promising to “take the mystery out of money and the fear away from finances,” Sanderson begins with a broad overview of job sectors that are open to teens, including retail, food service, babysitting, tutoring, lawn care, lifeguarding, and reselling items online. She then goes on to detail common payroll deductions, which leads into a discussion of taxes and retirement investments. All this information is presented in easily digestible blocks of narrative interspersed with stock photos of a racially diverse cast of smiling young workers, with summaries at each short chapter’s end. As a formula, the approach seems intended not to offer anything like a comprehensive set of options and expenses but to ease readers into thinking about how they’re going to make money as they move into adulthood and smart things to do with their earnings, while providing some specialized vocabulary (Form 1099, capital gains tax) that may prove helpful. The author closes by urging her audience to take a long view in planning for the future, to be careful with debts and credit cards, and to understand that, financially speaking, life “is full of surprises.”