Primary (ages 6-9)

Material appropriate for primary age groups

Come Out And Play: A Global Journey

Can you come out and play?
If you woke up tomorrow in Egypt with a yen for a good game of tag, you could find it. Then you could hop on your magic carpet and fly to Thailand to play Go Fishwith some new friends. Later, you could seesaw until the cows come home in Ireland. Everyone loves to play and the universal appeal of games and goofing around is joyfully evident in COME OUT AND PLAY.
Brilliant, full-color photographs portray exuberant, playful kids from over 35 countries engaging in games of all kinds

A New Home

Moving to a new city can be exciting. But what if your new home isn’t anything at all like your old home? Will you make friends? What will you eat? Where will you play? In a shared voice, a boy moving from New York City to Mexico City and a girl moving from Mexico City to New York City express their fears about leaving home to live in a new and unfamiliar place. Tania de Regil offers a heart-warming story about finding home wherever you go.

A Story About Afiya

Some people have dresses for every occasion but Afiya needs only one. Her dress records the memories of her childhood, from roses in bloom to pigeons in flight, from tigers at the zoo to October leaves falling. A joyful celebration of a young girl’s childhood, written by the late Coretta Scott King Book Award-winning Jamaican poet James Berry.

Birrarung Wilam: A Story From Aboriginal Australia

Travel along Melbourne’s twisting Yarra River in a glorious celebration of Indigenous culture and Australia’s unique flora and fauna.

Featured in Vol. XIII, Issue 2 of WOW Review.

Birrarung Wilam: A Story From Aboriginal Australia is a WOW Recommends: Book of the Month for September 2020.

Jaya’s Golden Necklace

Jaya’s Golden Necklace is the first children’s book to tell of the origin and cultural roots of the beloved Buddha image. A story of East and West, it teaches lessons and entertains while also opening a door into Asian culture. Set along the Silk Road, Jaya’s journey highlights the interconnected and multicultural worlds of yesterday and today.

The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity: A Tale of the Genius Ramanujan

In 1887 in India, a boy named Ramanujan is born with a passion for numbers. This picture book biography tells the story of this mathematical genius who grew up to reinvents much of modern mathematics.

Story Boat

Baby blue background with illustration of refugee children in boatWhen a little girl and her younger brother are forced along with their family to flee the home they’ve always known, they must learn to make a new home for themselves — wherever they are. And sometimes the smallest things — a cup, a blanket, a lamp, a flower, a story — can become a port of hope in a terrible storm. As the refugees travel onward toward an uncertain future, they are buoyed up by their hopes, dreams and the stories they tell — a story that will carry them perpetually forward.

This timely, sensitively told story, written by multiple award–winner Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Sendak Fellowship recipient Rashin Kheiriyeh, introduces very young readers in a gentle, non-frightening and ultimately hopeful way to the current refugee crisis.

A Different Pond

A Different Pond is an unforgettable story about a simple event – a long-ago fishing trip. Graphic novelist Thi Bui and poet Bao Phi deliver a powerful, honest glimpse into a relationship between father and son – and between cultures, old and new. As a young boy, Bao and his father awoke early, hours before his father’s long workday began, to fish on the shores of a small pond in Minneapolis. Unlike many other anglers, Bao and his father fished for food, not recreation. A successful catch meant a fed family. Between hope-filled casts, Bao’s father told him about a different pond in their homeland of Vietnam.

Read two takes on A Different Pond in June 2019’s My Take/Your Take.