Primary (ages 6-9)

Material appropriate for primary age groups

Earth To Audrey

Audrey comes into Ray’s life like an earthbound star. Everything about her is a bit far-out. And she’s always in her own little world. So Ray decides that this unusual girl who has dropped into his neighborhood for the summer must be an alien. As they become friends, Audrey takes Ray on a journey of discovery — one that enables him to see his own planet in a new light. Soon, Ray can’t imagine life on Earth without her. Susan Hughes’ poignant, gently humorous text and Stephane Poulin’s evocative, heartfelt illustrations capture the long childhood summer of discovery in a small town and depict a friendship that changed the lives of two lonely dreamers.

Rare Treasure: Mary Anning and Her Remarkable Discoveries

Describes the life of the English girl whose discovery of an Ichthyosaurus fossil led to a lasting interest in other prehistoric animals.

The Serpent Came To Gloucester

Drawing on a true story, an award-winning author and illustrator present a picture-book tribute to the beauty and mystery of the ocean, and to the mesmerizing creatures that may frolic there.It came from the sea, from the lonely sea,It came from the glittering sea.In a small Massachusetts fishing village in August of 1817, dozens of citizens claimed to have seen an enormous sea serpent swimming off the coast. Terrified at first, the people of Gloucester eventually became quite accustomed to their new neighbor. Adventure seekers came from miles around to study the serpent and aggressively hunt it down, but the creature eluded capture. The Gloucester sea serpent was then, and remains now, a complete mystery. Reviving the rhythms and tone of a traditional sea chanty, M.T. Anderson recounts this exhilarating sea adventure through the eyes of a little boy who secretly hopes for the serpent’s survival. The author’s captivating verse is paired with Bagram Ibatoulline’s luminous paintings, created in the spirit of nineteenth-century New England maritime artists.

Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon

An account of the finding of the first entire skeleton of an ichthyosaur, an extinct sea reptile, by a twelve-year-old English girl who went on to become a paleontologist.

Smile If You’re Human

An alien child’s quest to take a photograph of a “mysterious creature known as a human” has an unexpected result when a search through an Earth zoo brings an encounter with a gorilla.