In a charming twist on the “boy wants dog” story, this time it’s a dog who begs his mama for a boy, promising to feed it, play with it and walk it; Mama points out that boys are very difficult to train, but Dog knows what he wants and in the end, the determined little canine’s perseverance pays off.
Picture Book
Chicken, Pig, Cow, And The Purple Problem
Who ever heard of a purple cow?How come Cow’s spots are purple when every other cow’s are gray or brown? Fed up with being different, Cow sets out on a quest to change her spots.Thanks to a gravelly walkway, she soon finds lots of gray to cover the purple, and a squirrel in a tree provides plenty of brown by showering Cow with seeds. But when she arrives back home all big and bunchy and lumpy, Chicken and Pig hardly recognize her. When they finally realize it is Cow, they reassure her that she is their friend — purple spots and all.The adorable Chicken, Pig, Cow and Dog are back, and they continue to capture the hearts of young readers. The winning combination of simple text, expressive illustrations and lots of humor makes this a perfect choice for toddlers and beginning readers.
Topsy-Turvy Town
Imagining a wacky town where it rains broccoli, police officers dance while on duty and people juggle wildcats before bedtime, a young boy is disregarded by everyone in his family except his understanding mother. By the award-winning author of The Grand Journey of Mr. Man.
Willow’s Whispers
Willow’s voice, soft and shy as a secret, goes unheard by everyone at school and causes her to no end of troubles. (Having to drink orange juice at snack time when she has asked to nicely for apple is just one disappointment.) After a night of wishing, thinking and planning for a way to make louder words, Willow wakes the next morning with the perfect idea: a magic microphone! But although she fashions if from the sturdiest recyclables, her beglittered invention doesn’t last the school day. Will Willow find another way to make herself heard?
The Red Scarf
Amazing stories can be told with almost no words, as Anne Villeneuve demonstrates in The Red Scarf, originally published in French as L’echarpe rouge. One day, a taxi driver finds a red scarf left behind in his cab by a customer. Determined to find the scarf’s owner, the cabbie unknowingly walks into a world filled with strange characters: a friendly lizard, a mischievous bear, a fearsome lion and his tamer, a daredevil, and a mysterious magician. Before he knows it, the cabbie becomes part of the show. Young readers will relish this almost wordless picture book about a seemingly ordinary day, which quickly turns into an extraordinary adventure.
Mattoo, Let’s Play!
Mortimer (Board Book)
Even after his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters, and even two policemen try to get Mortimer to be quiet and go to sleep, he still insists on making noise.
The revised text and child-friendly format make it appropriate for preschoolers, but it retains all the humor of the original story .
Edgar Potato
If you knew you were to read a story of a Prince Edward Island potato that had grown too big, you would be able to predict the rest: his peer potatoes would give him a hard time, right? Right. But in the end he would win out, right? Right again, in fact the prize for the Potato Beauty Contest. There is not too much to be put in the middle of such predictability, but Don Oickle has made a good effort. Because Edgar Potato is so near the surface, he gets to see and experience much of the lovely Prince Edward Island scenery. This makes up in part for the insults he receives from his smaller neighbour potatoes. He will not, they jeer, be able to become a wonderful baked or French fried or instant mashed potato. His fate will be to be made into pig food. After winning his beauty prize, Edgar’s last comment is “Maybe being bigger than all the others isn’t so bad after all!
50 Burning Questions
A red-hot feast of fiery facts — the first book in Annick’s new 50 Questions seriesIf we took the time to examine flames in our world — fires that have built civilizations, sparked entire religions and literally changed the surface of the Earth — can you imagine how many questions we would have? The 50 questions in this book may be just the beginning, but they will intrigue and excite young readers.From “Who’s for dinner?” (before mastering fire, humans were more likely to be prey than predators) to “Who were the first firefighters?” (Romans over 2,000 years ago), the amazing questions and answers in this book reveal fire’s crucial role in our world.With a humorous touch (“Who was the first hairy potter?”), Tanya Lloyd Kyi presents fascinating facts alongside innovative activities for kids, like sending breath through a glass jar and playing spy games with a flashlight. Sidebars turn up the heat on the subject, while comical illustrations make for a fun and fiery visual presentation.