Fantasy

Fantasy genre

When the Silliest Cat Was Small

A companion to My Cat, the Silliest Cat in the World, chronicling the silliest cat’s younger years. The only thing cuter than a cat is a kitten, and the only thing cuter than a kitten is a kitten who is actually an enormous elephant! After being chosen from a litter of other brightly colored elephants, Gilles’s “kitten” must acclimate himself to his new home. Just like in the first book, the elephant behaves like a kitten should–making a mess, hiding from his food bowl, and waging a war with a particularly tricky stuffed animal.

The First Music

When the animals all get together in the jungle, they discover that the noise that they have been making is indeed music. Dylan Pritchett weaves a tale that helps us discover that we all have music inside just waiting to come out.

The Cow That Laid an Egg

Marjorie is an insecure cow who wishes she had some special talent. She can’t ride a bicycle or do handstands like the other cows. Then one morning (thanks to a bunch of scheming chickens and a paintbrush), Marjorie is astonished to discover something extraordinary: she laid an egg!

Vasco: Leader of the Tribe

Like all the rats in his tribe, Vasco loves nothing more than to scurry around the harbor in search of discarded fish. But one day he discovers that the members of his tribe have died under mysterious circumstances. Now Vasco is alone until he reluctantly joins some fearsome rats who live deep in the sewers. Among them, he makes some loyal friends and some daunting enemies. And, as he begins to understand that humans are masterminding the extinction of all the rats in the city, Vasco sees only one solution: to flee aboard a ship. Courageous, humble, and determined, Vasco does his best to guide his exiled companions to a faraway land where they can live peacefully. But in struggling to establish a new tribe, and to find a place they can call home, Vasco must endure countless dangers and rise to many challenges.

Mouse Noses on Toast

When Paul Mouse overhears a customer in a restaurant ordering mouse noses on toast, he assumes it must be a joke. Mouse noses on toast is a myth. But when the waiter asks if that would be with or without whiskers, Paul knows it’s no joke. So begins a laugh-out-loud funny ride involving mouse activists and cheese addicts.

The Queen’s Necklace: A Swedish Folktale

A cruel and greedy king prizes a pearl necklace above all, but the kind-hearted young woman who becomes his wife gives the pearls away one by one to help the poor.

My Dad’s a Birdman

In a rainy town in the north of England, there are strange goings-on. Dad is building a pair of wings, eating flies, and feathering his nest. Auntie Doreen is getting cross and making dumplings. Contest barker Mr. Poop is parading the streets shouting louder and louder, and even Mr. Mint, the headmaster, is not quite himself. And watching it all is Lizzie, missing her mam and looking after Dad by letting him follow his newfound whimsy.

From Another World

Martin and his friends are helping their parents turn an old Brazilian coffee plantation into an inn. The children have a fun time helping to renovate the old place and they sleep in a shed that is being converted into a guest room. But one night they hear the sound of a young girl crying. Gradually, the ghost of a slave girl from the late 1800s named Rosario appears to them. Rosario tells them the story of her life and in doing so reveals the danger and instability that existed in Brazil after slavery ended. Though not the best at writing, Martin promises Rosario to record her story in the form of a book. Though the experience of slavery seems remote to the Martin and his friends, by the time they’ve heard Rosario’s story, the evil of slavery is made painfully clear. Ann Maria Machado’s deft storytelling skills and social conscience come together in this powerfully moving book that explores the history and impact of slavery.

The Cat: Or, How I Lost Eternity

Every day, eight-year-old Christine’s walk to school takes her past a talking alley cat. Christine stops and feels its warm head beneath her hand, and the cat’s insights invariably give her something to ponder. One day her teacher asks her why she’s always late for school. Frightened, she reveals her secret. Her punishment: she must write 200 lines stating repeatedly, “There are no talking cats, and from now on I will arrive at school on time.” However, the cat is real, no matter how many lines Christine writes and she might just as well leave out the “no” — the headmaster won’t even notice, says the clever cat. That’s what the cat always says — that life is all about being clever and looking out for yourself, first and foremost. Christine isn’t so sure, and she is a little scared of the cat, too. There must be more to life than self-interest.

The Story of the Seagull and the Cat who Taught Her to Fly

It’s migration time and as a mother gull dives into the water to catch a herring she’s caught in an oil slick! Thinking of the egg she is about to lay she manages to extract herself and fly to the nearest port. Exhausted, she lands on a balcony where Zorba the cat is sunning himself. Zorba wants to get help, but the gull knows it’s too late and she extracts three promises from him: 1) That he won’t eat the egg, 2) that he’ll take care of the chick until it hatches, and 3) that he’ll teach it to fly. Well the first two are hard enough, but the third one is surely impossible.