Anna fetches water from the spring every day, but she can’t carry it on her head like her older brothers and sisters can. In this charming and poetic family story set in Jamaica, Commonwealth Prize-winning author Olive Senior shows young readers the power of determination, as Anna achieves her goal and overcomes her fear.
Miriam lives in hut 18, bed 22. She has little to eat and nothing to play with, but she can remember what it was like before, when she had her own food, her own bed, and her very own toys. As World War II nears an end, everyone says the soldiers are coming, so Miriam joins the women in planning a celebration. Every night, while the guards sleep, they busy themselves crafting toys out of scraps of their clothing to surprise the younger children. Based on a reference to a small collection of stuffed toys made by women in Belsen for the first party held after the liberation of the camp, this new edition of Let the Celebrations Begin!, originally published in 1996, is an affecting story of human survival.
What antics were going on in the land of Mamoko back in the times of fair maidens, kings, and courtiers? This is the third book in the revolutionary Mamoko series, in which the reader becomes the storyteller, telling aloud their discoveries as they use their eyes to uncover the castle-load of characters packed into every page.
The boy asks the moon if it enjoys some of his favorite activities–and they share in some, like pretending to be pirates, together. But then the boy starts to think big. Can the moon see the city? Can the moon see the whole wide world? What are the moon’s friends like? Soon the boy grows tired, says good night to the moon, and falls asleep.
You Can’t Catch Me and You Can’t Put Mustard in the Custard were first published 25 years ago and were groundbreaking collections of poems for children. You Can’t Catch Me won the Signal Poetry Award in 1982, and both books went on to become bestsellers. Combined here for the first time, the conversational and fun poetry from both these collections is fantastically matched by silly but perfectly detailed full-color illustrations. An audio CD is also provided so that children can listen to their favorite poems.
Betty O’Barley and Harry O’Hay are planning the best wedding the barnyard has ever seen. But when Harry sets off to fetch some flowers for his bride-to-be, the wicked scarecrow Reginald Rake tries to take his place.
When Lily is finally allowed to have her very own kitten, strange things are afoot. Lily’s brand new, teeny-tiny Kitty shouldn’t be any trouble at all, but as soon as Lily leaves Kitty alone, hilarious hijinks are always around the corner. Kitty ruins the kitchen, Kitty ruins the den. And we won’t talk about what Kitty did to the rug. A loveable story that will have kids laughing out loud.
After showing kindness to a strange old woman, Shiraz receives the gift of beauty but her lazy and unkind stepsister, Nargues, suffers a less pleasant fate in this adaptation of the Grimm’s fairy tale, Mother Hulda, reset in Tehran, Iran.
Forced to flee the Nazis, a young girl and her family eventually end up in the United States where, years later, with a young daughter of her own, she is improbably reunited with the beloved doll she left behind in Germany.
As profound as it is simple, this universal picture book celebrates people all around the world as they do the same things in different ways— work and play, laugh and cry, and wonder why.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 8, Issue 2