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Wise Strega Nona plans her garden months before the fall harvest. Soon after the winter thaw, she plants all sorts of vegetables in a very neat, organized garden. Strega Nona gives her friends (and us) useful tips about gardening, such as storing seeds in the dark and switching planting locations every year to make the soil rich. Big Anthony, a bumbling, but lovable character, secretly sets out to plant his own garden to prove that he, too, can do something right. So he plants seeds, but not quite in as orderly fashion as Strega Nona suggested. While Strega Nona’s garden begins to grow, so does Big…
For more than 50 years, Jane Goodall has been an advocate for chimpanzees and their natural habitat. This new picture book tells about the early years of Jane’s lifelong passion. At the age of 26, she traveled to Africa to study animals and was given the opportunity to research chimpanzees by living among them in Tanzania. Living in the forest, she patiently (and bravely) watched the way chimpanzees lived and interacted with each other. They eventually came to trust her and allowed her to get close enough to see their every move. Her experience and compassion led her to launch a global campaign to stop people…
This book, written and illustrated in the months immediately following September 11th, 2001, is a chronological, factual telling of the day’s horrific events in New York City, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania. The illustrations were done by fifth and sixth grade students at a Cincinnati elementary school.
A variety of “big” words and life lessons are presented in this picture book that uses cookie baking as a backdrop. Each page begins with a word and its definition in the context of cookie baking. For example, the first page features the word “prompt” and the narrator tells us that prompt means being on time for the baking session. As the cast of children and their friends, who are animals, proceed through the baking process, additional words are defined. Some words relate to important lessons in working together, such as “comprise.” This means deciding to make medium size cookies…
Bailey’s not like any other dog. He has his own bedroom, sleeps in a “human” bed and goes to school every day. Bailey, the only dog at school, does just what all the other kids do, such as ride the bus, learn math and enjoy lunch in the cafeteria, among other typical school activities. Like most kids, Bailey gets into his share of harmless trouble. For example, he pops the kids’ kickball, thinking it’s a chew toy, and makes a mess after dipping his tail in paint during art class. In all, Bailey is just “one of the kids.”
Amos McGee is an elderly gentleman who lives alone and works at the city zoo. He considers the zoo animals his good friends. Like many creatures in literature, these animals have some human qualities. Amos is a very considerate friend and makes sure he spends quality time with each of them. For instance, he races with the tortoise, and always lets him win, and sits patiently while the elephant ponders each move in chess. One day, Amos wakes up with a cold and is too sick to go to work. The animals wait anxiously for him to arrive, and when he doesn’t, they hop on the city bus to visit him. They nurse him back…
A young prince has so much to do, why waste time going to sleep? One night, this story’s prince flat-out refuses to go to sleep. His mother, the queen, has the castle staff bring him cookies and hot milk, to no avail. So the king puts out a royal request to his kingdom for assistance. A diverse parade of subjects comes to the prince’s bedroom, including a physician with a special medicine that ends up putting everyone else to sleep except the prince. Dancers, magicians, jugglers all visit the Prince and their efforts only energize the youngster. One evening, an old woman knocks on the door, claiming to…
It’s never too early to learn job-hunting skills! This new picture book, in Sally Lloyd-Jones’ “how-to” series, is a humorous guide for tot job seekers, narrated by a young female “executive” known as “The Boss.” The Boss begins with the basics of working, such as the need for money and “something to do.” From a child’s point of view, she covers the skills needed for a wide variety of “professions,” including a scuba diver, magician, teacher and police officer, among others. The Boss advises readers to chose a job based on what they are…
This new picture book is a retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Ugly Duckling using a young dinosaur as the subject. The story line is similar to the classic, except when Mother Duck’s eggs hatch, a dinosaur pops out instead of an ugly duckling. Like the original, Mother Duck loves her “ugly duckling” despite his differences. After unintentionally scaring other animals and being mocked, the little dinosaur runs off to find a place where he belongs. As time passes, he grows really big, so much that even other dinosaurs flee at the sight of him. Finally, he meets an “adult”…
Hans Christian Anderson’s timeless tale from the mid-1800s is retold with modern illustrations by Sebastien Braun. We all know the story of how Mother Duck found an extra, different egg in her nest, and vowed to love and nurture it as if it was her own. When the egg hatched, the “duckling” looked and sounded very different than his siblings. As he grew up, he was ostracized by others for being so different, yet his mother always said, “No matter, I love you just the same.” He runs away and eventually meets some swans who look and sound just like him. He realizes that he does…
