Phoebe half Jamaican, half French-Canadian hates her school nickname of “French Toast.” So she is mortified when, out on a walk with her Jamaican grandmother, she hears a classmate shout it out at her. To make things worse, Nan-Ma, who is blind, wants an explanation of the name.
Far away, near the South Pole, a blue penguin is born. It is not something you see every day. “I feel like a penguin,” says Blue Penguin. “But you’re not like us,” the others tell him. Blue Penguin can’t jump or dive very well, so the others wander off and leave him behind. In his loneliness, Blue Penguin begins to dream, and he starts to sing.
In Gilles Tibo’s wonder-filled tribute to poetry, poems bloom in fields, fly on the wings of birds, and float on the foam of the sea. They are written in the dark of night, in the light of happiness, and in the warmth of the writer’s heart.
The mushroom folk are waking up from their winter sleep and emerging into the sunshine. Each family has its own characteristics and we get to know them well in these charming little tales.
Mr. Moon always sleeps. He naps during hide-and-seek, passes out on puzzles and dozes during adventure stories. But what would happen if Mr Moon ever woke up?
When the young prince of Zapada is imprisoned by invaders, he needs all the help he can get to escape. As he flees dressed in his red pajamas, his captors are hot on his heels.
Nekgaon is a perfect village. Yes, everything’s perfect, from the cock’s crow to the setting sun. But a strange demand from a strange man changes everything.
In the middle of a vast forest lives a giant who spends his days hurling and heaving, smashing and bashing. Over time, the animals flee as their homes vanish, the birdsong dwindles away to silence, and, finally, the forest itself disappears.
It is 1943, and thirteen-year-old Michael O’Shaunessey, son of the Irish ambassador to Nazi Germany in Berlin, is also a spy for the British Secret Service, so he has joined the Hitler Youth, and pretending that he agrees with their violence and book-burning is hard enough but when he is asked to find out more about “Projekt 1065” both his and his parents’ lives get a lot more dangerous.
Discover words to surprise, delight, and enamor. Learn terms for the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees, for dancing awkwardly but with relish, and for the look shared by two people who each wish the other would speak first.