with Paleontologist Yoshitsugu Kobayashi
Riku is an outgoing, bored elementary student who gets more than he bargained for when he asks for something entertaining to pop out of the sky. Enter Stella, an adorable outer space creature with a mission to discover the secrets of a mysterious rock! Before Riku can get a handle on the situation, Stella has summoned a magic book that has transported all three of them to the age of the dinosaurs. Shortly behind them comes Riku’s friends, the lovable Kirara who adores everything fluffy, and brash Ginga, who literally butts heads in his demands to see something cool. The three try to keep out of the way of predatory carnivores while observing all the herbivores in their quest to find the home of this mysterious egg-shaped-rock.
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This historical manga leads readers through many consequential moments in modern history. We begin with Gandhi's efforts to lead India to independence from the British. Next is the struggle between the leaders of the United States and the crumbling Soviet Union as tensions mount during the Cold War. The Space Race and Civil Rights chapter shows readers how interconnected the politics of the Cold War became to the exploration of space, and how the civil unrest in the United States was juxtaposed with pride in national achievements. Further chapters bring readers into the modern era.
Suzume and the other keepers get the dinos ready for winter by preparing special bedding and changing the enclosures to be heated. Then, a velociraptor escapes from some smugglers and is on the loose in a populated area. Suzume and Kaidou are called upon to help capture the poor creature. They head into the city to search for clues, and Suzume uses much of what she’s learned as a new keeper, including its wintering habits, to help track the velociraptor.
Suzume starts a rotation into other departments, starting with the department overseeing the stegosaurus. She learns more about Igarashi, a seemingly cheery keeper who likewise wants people to learn information about the dinos while learning their stories. Igarashi had a previous job at another establishment, Blue World, where the prime focus was on entertainment, rather than education, and he often got in trouble for leaving his keeper side of the job to interact with park guests and give them educational information.
On the way to work one morning, Suzume finds Kaidou stopped to pay his respects at a shrine for all the deceased dinosaurs, and he tells her the details of the incident fifteen years ago that led to a dinosaur attack and, ultimately, her father’s death. Later, Suzume is entrusted to look after one of the Troodon babies, a runt who was rejected by the flock. Then, she gets to plan a birthday celebration for the park’s aging Tyrannosaurus rex and must consider the dino's special dietary needs when constructing her a birthday cake made of meat. Suzume hopes posting about the celebration on social media, as well as a few other dino-happenings, will get more visitors to visit the park.
Booklist review
Sara's Rating: 8/10 Suitability Level: Grades 6-10 Publisher: UDON Entertainment Publication Date: October 1, 2024 ISBN: 9781772943443 (Paperback) Tags: Rating: 8/10, Suitability: Elementary School, Manga, Biography, Educational, Nonfiction, History, UDON Entertainment 
After a shocking discover on a remote island, dinosaurs that were once thought to be extinct re-emerge into the public zeitgeist. Several rounds of genetic experiments help bring back other species, and the overall popularity lead to dinosaur zoos sprouting up across Japan. But a tragic incident fifteen years prior to the opening of our story soured the public on dino parks, and now they're in decline. Suzume Suma starts her first day as a Dino zookeeper at a small, underfunded and slowly dying dinosaur park where she hopes to build a bridge between the animals and their human visitors by bringing out their stories and showing the personalities of each animal at the park.
Illustrated by Issei Hatsuyoshiya
Rookie Red Blood Cell navigates through an adult male body, struggling to get his job done in an environment of high stress, skinny arteries, and with foreign toxins constantly being introduced. When the body introduces carbon monoxide, several red blood cells are injured and disfigured as it binds to them and forces them to drop their shipments of oxygen. Later, the Red Blood Cells are sprayed with alcohol, and they take a detour through the liver to have the alcohol cleaned off them. Miss White Blood Cell has her work cut out for her battling against a weak environment that invited in pneumonia and gonorrhea bacteria. 
Red Blood Cell-san is determined to make it around the entire respiratory system without the help of other cells. After numerous times getting lost and having a guardian angel in White Blood Cell-san help her from the shadows, she finally makes it all the way around for one cycle! Then, we go to a different cell who is in his apartment, dividing himself to make another cell. He finds another cell who is playing practical jokes on white blood cells and Killer T cells. The practical joker turns out to be a rhinovirus, wanting to infect all the cells and cause the Cold. Later, White Blood Cell-san fights tirelessly to help the cells of a hair follicle fight off the bacteria that causes acne. Lots of other white blood cells have tried and failed, but White Blood Cell-san isn’t a quitter!
Illustrated by Tarako
God has a team of designers at his disposal who will make all manner of creatures based on a very limited scope - things like a mammal able to eat leaves off tall trees (which results in a giraffe), or something “adorably uncute” (which results in the koala). The designers, all sharing a name with one of the planets, each have their quirks when designing animals: Mr. Saturn’s greatest invention was the horse, something he tries to reinvent for everyone challenge to limited success; Pluto makes terrifying animals but is also very fixated on how her creations will reproduce; Neptune makes all kinds of amphibious animals; and Jupiter has become the official taste-tester, making sure delicious animals have extra protection or defense mechanisms. At the end of each chapter is a note on the main, real, animals that were designed, providing some educational content for readers. 
This spin off of the main story of Cells at Work is about a baby body with baby cells, and all of them are drawn in a chibi style (large eyes, puffy cheeks, short limbs). The main characters in this are Red Blood Cell (Chibi) and F, a type of red blood cell bearing Hemoglobin-F which is more effective when the fetus is in the womb. By the end of this volume, we also meet a White Blood Cell (Chibi), who, unlike his counterpart in the main series, is a big scaredy cat but still does his job in defending the baby’s body. The baby cells must fight off infection, with some help from Mother's Milk, as well as figure out how to navigate to the lungs once the baby is born.
The Ezo Ag Festival is finally here, but Hachiken is in the hospital recovering from exhaustion. Thankfully, the rest of his classmates are able to get the Festival off without a hitch thanks to all the preparation work he did, and even Hachiken's brother comes by to pitch in in his brother's absence. We finally also met Hachiken's parents, and it is abundantly apparent why Hachiken decided to go to school so far away from them. After he is released from the hospital, his friends try to fill him in on all the Festival details without making him sad that he missed it all. Later, Hachiken and Mikage go on their date that he promised her, but several classmates had the same idea for a location, and their date becomes less exclusive.
The cells are still hard at work, this time against a few different attackers. First, the blood cells have to fight off food poisoning from bacteria but also a tape worm hidden inside sushi, and it threatens to break through the stomach wall! Next, the body undergoes heat stress, which makes it difficult to fight off bacteria, especially ones that have their own heat protection. Red Blood Cell gets lost on a delivery (again) and finds herself in the Bone Marrow where red and white blood cells are nurtured through their young lives before they become mature red or white blood cells. This detour takes Red Blood Cell down memory lane, to her own upbringing. Lastly, the immune system must fight off the deadly, mutated cancer cells that trick the body into bringing it nutrients so it can multiply faster.
Cells at Work is fundamentally about the inner workings of the human body. The main characters are Red Blood Cell and White Blood Cell. Red Blood Cell is fairly new, and needs to find her way to the lungs to drop off the shipment of CO2 she’s carting around, when she comes across some pretty nasty bacterial guys. Enter White Blood Cell, who isn’t afraid to just blast right through these baddies with his bare fists. When the fight gets too much for White Blood Cell to handle, in comes Helper T Cells, who can tell Killer T Cells to attack. Then there’s B Cells who come with Antibodies to fight serious infections. Influenza threatens to take over at one point by spreading its zombie-like infection to regular cells. One day, Red Blood Cell is working pretty close to the epidermis, and a scrape threatens to pull her out, along with several of her Red Blood Cell buddies. White Blood Cell is there again to save her, especially from the bacteria that immediately infiltrate the cut. But, the bacteria didn’t account for another helpful cell: Platelets.
It’s campus cleanup time again and Hachiken finds a puppy in the trash heap! After cleaning him off, the pup becomes the unofficial mascot and guide dog for the equation club, “Vice Prez.” Later, the students go see the baseball team compete and cheer on Komaba’s pitching. Then, it’s time to plan for the Ag Festival, and the equestrian team wants to do something to showcase how cool horses are. Hachiken can’t get his horse, Chestnut, to jump, even though other riders can. He must learn a valuable lesson about himself as a rider. While he trying to get the equestrian event up and running, he overcommits to other groups’ festival offerings. The man who won’t say no must learn, or he’ll never get in the practice with Chestnut that he needs to become a great jumper!
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About MeI've been reading manga and comicbooks for years. Now, I write reviews and other helpful things for School Librarians, teachers, parents, and students. Search this site
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