Material appropriate for primary age groups
Sunday Chutney has the most extraordinary life–she has lived all over the world. Moving around means she’s always the new kid at school and never really has a place to call home. But Sunday Chutney doesn’t care about that because she knows how to handle it.
After a courtship voyage of a year and a day, the owl and the pussycat finally buy a ring from Piggy and are blissfully married, in this illustrated version of Lear’s nonsense poem.
“Where do you find kisses?” “What do kisses look like?” Matilda Rose loves to kiss. But one day, something goes terribly, horribly wrong. She loses her kisses, just before her daddy is going to come home. Matilda goes on the hysterical and thoughtful search to find her kisses. Matilda Rose learns that you can never really lose your kisses — they will always be there when you need them.
Baskets empty on the seat. Must be filled with things to eat…On a road in Africa, On a road in Africa. Where you gonna go, Mama O, Mama O? Follow real-life animal rescuer Chryssee Perry Martin (a.k.a. “Mama `O’rphanage”) as she makes her daily trek down a dusty road in Africa. Along the way she fills her sisal baskets to the brim with mangoes, bananas, peanuts, and even poop–all to feed and entertain the rescued animals staying in the Nairobi Animal Orphanage. Kim Doner’s detailed oil wash and pencil paintings transport readers to Nairobi, Kenya, where children prepare snacks for hungry baboons and buffalo feast on sugar cane.
Eighty years before Columbus, China sent ships to explore the world. The Chinese discovered many marvelous things, but one discovery stood out above the others: the chee-lin. This chee-lin was just a giraffe, but to the Chinese it was an omen of good fortune so rare that it had appeared only once before—at the birth of Confucius. In a storybook in which each page evokes the richness of far away places and long-ago days, James Rumford traces the chee-lin’s journey from Africa to Bengal to China, weaving a tale not just of a giraffe but of the people he meets along the way.
Growl is a little purple monster who lives alone in a big castle at the end of Eucalyptus Drive. Growl likes to hop and skip, and jump, and sing. But best of all, Growl loves to growl! She loves to growl inside and out. She loves to growl all morning, and even at night. One afternoon Growl sneaks across her garden and growls over the neighbor’s fence! When they telephone the police, a special rule is made and Growl is banned from doing what she loves best. But what will Growl do? How will Growl get her growl back?
The strange thing happens—the day his line goes missing—Tommaso knows what he must do: find it. It’s the line on the drawing he puts in his pocket every day, the line he drew of the hill by his nonna’s house, and he knows he must find that very one. It suddenly dawns on Tommaso whom to ask: Nonna. Nonna will know.
Jake doesn’t want to give his mother a hug when he gets to school. All the other kids will think he’s a baby. But when Jake gets home, he finds that his mom has given his hug to his dad, who’s given it to the cat, who’s given it to a witch, and so on . . . Will Jake ever get his hug back? James Mayhew’s gentle story and Sue Hellard’s charming illustrations make this a perfect bedtime story for parents and children to share.
Elise wonders why her grandmother’s words keep escaping her — do they fly off to play tricks on her? Elise’s grandmother used to know many marvelous words, but now she seems to be losing them all the time. Can Elise help her by catching them, like butterflies in a net? This award-winning picture book offers a gentle exploration of the effects of Alzheimer’s on the relationships in a family, and the special bond it creates between a grandmother and her granddaughter. Eventually, Elise comes to believe that her grandmother has used up all her words and has passed them on to her, as a gift. Winner of the 2007 Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature Illustration (French language).