This is MY Fort!, written by Drew Daywalt, reviewed by Klaudia Janek

Student Reviewer: Hamzah B. 
Summary: This book is about a cake who builds a fort and does not let monkeys in. When a monkey asks to enter, the cake says that no monkeys are allowed. Then, when the monkey gets sad, the monkey goes on to build his own fort. And since his fort is much bigger than the cake’s fort, the cake wants to enter the monkeys fort. However, because the monkey was not allowed to enter the cake’s fort, the monkey denies the cake entry into his fort. Now the cake is sad because the cake does not want to just stay in the fort that he made and the cake feels like it is being trapped in his own fort and no one else's. In the end, the monkey allows the cake to enter the fort after seeing how sad the cake became. Essentially, this is a book which teaches the values about sharing. It shows what happens when somebody does not share and how it makes them feel when somebody else does the same thing to them.

Straight Talk for Librarians: This book has a really important message of sharing. There also seems to be a deeper meaning in it that came out after I finished reading the book. There is the idea of perception. Monkey learns to think out of the box and manipulates his use of language a little bit. There could also be some political undertones as there is a lot of talk in the news about “walls.” When you get down to the idea of what walls really keep in or out, there is not much point to closing yourself off. It’s a pretty complicated concept to introduce to younger readers, but this book does a really nice job of it. Definitely a good addition to any library.