When Ben rips open his present, he finds a penguin inside. “Hello, Penguin!” he says. “What shall we play?” But Penguin says nothing. Even when Ben tickles its belly, sings a funny song, does a dizzy dance, stands on his head, sticks out his tongue, and resorts to increasingly rude and drastic measures, Penguin makes no response. What will it take for Penguin to say something — or for Ben to understand what Penguin has to say?
Fiction
Fiction genre
Bye-Bye Binky
Nora is a big girl now, but she still clings to her pacifier when she gets sleepy. One day it falls out of her pocket while she’s playing outside. Ella Elephant doesn’t know what it is, but she thinks it’ll make a beautiful ring for her trunk. When she too loses it, Lotti Lamb finds it and thinks it’ll make a nice hair clip. One by one different animals find the binky and put it to different uses, only to lose it again. And just when Nora finally finds it, she realizes that maybe she doesn’t need it anymore.
Patterns in Peru: An Adventure in Patterning
Matt and Bibi unravel a pattern to discover a lost city. The Zills are visiting Peru to study the mysterious lost city of Quwi when Matt and Bibi stumble into an adventure. With only each other, their faithful dog Riley, and an unusual ancient relic to guide them, the twins must use their understanding of patterns and sequences to locate the lost city—and the way back.
Goodbye Vietnam
Thirteen-year-old Mai and her family embark on a dangerous sea voyage from Vietnam to Hong Kong to escape the unpredictable and often brutal Vietnamese government.
Dog Boy
Given to the Great Fater on the night of his birth, Boy is reared by a dog in a village whose people barely tolerate him, despite signs that he is favored, then travels far, striving to find his rightful place in the brutal world of humans.
Clay
The developing relationship between teenager Davie and a mysterious new boy in town morphs into something darker and more sinister when Davie learns firsthand of the boy’s supernatural powers.
Kampung Boy
Relates the life experiences, from birth to beginning boarding school, of a boy growing up on a rubber plantation in rural Malaysia.
Wintersmith
When witch-in-training Tiffany Aching accidentally interrupts the Dance of the Seasons and awakens the interest of the elemental spirit of Winter, she requires the help of the six-inch-high, sword-wielding, sheep-stealing Wee Free Men to put the seasons aright.
Surrender
As he is dying, a twenty-year-old man known as Gabriel recounts his troubled childhood and his strange relationship with a dangerous counterpart named Finningan.
If Not for The Calico Cat
In Japan, the ship The Jade Lotus takes a calico cat aboard for good luck, but the crew still runs into all kinds of trouble.