Isabel’s House of Butterflies

Outside her home in Michoacan, Mexico, grows eight-year-old Isabel’s greatest treasure: an oyamel tree. Every autumn, a miracle happens because Isabel’s tree is the wintering place for thousands upon thousands of monarch butterflies that migrate from the north. When they flutter down to roost, they transform Isabel’s tree into La casa de las mariposas–The House of Butterflies. But this wonder is in danger of disappearing forever. Isabel’s family is poor, and it has been a cruel, dry year for Papa’s meager crop of corn and beans. Soon, chopping down the tree to sell its wood may be the family’s only hope for survival. What will happen to the butterflies then?

Splat the Cat

It’s Splat’s first day of school and he’s worried. What if he doesn’t make any new friends? Just in case, Splat decides to bring along his pet mouse, Seymour, and hides him in his lunchbox. The teacher, Mrs. Wimpydimple, introduces Splat to the class and he soon starts learning all his important cat lessons. But when Seymour escapes and the cats do what cats do (they chase mice!), Splat’s worried again. Maybe now he’ll lose all his friends, old and new! Just in time, wise Mrs. Wimpydimple takes charge and teaches everyone an important new lesson.

Look Out, Suzy Goose

Children are sure to smile as Suzy sets off to the woods in search of peace and quiet — cluelessly evading a trail of hungry critters in her wake.One afternoon all the geese are honking — except Suzy Goose, who is heading off to escape the noise. Suzy loves being alone in the woods, but the fox (TIPTOE), the wolf (CREEP, CREEP), and the bear (PAD, PAD) on her trail have other things in mind!

Duck In The Truck

Duck’s truck is stuck in the muck.Who will help him out?First, frog lends a hand. Then sheep helps push, too. But duck’s truck won’t come unstuck! Can anyone help him get out of the muck? Or is duck out of luck?Find out in this rollicking read-aloud by the inimitable Jez Alborough.

Humpty Dumpty

For hundreds of years, children have delighted in reciting the classic nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty’s fall. Over the centuries there have been many different interpretations, but some speculate that it was originally a riddle: “What could fall and break, but could not ever be repaired?” An egg is certainly one possible answer.

Tibili: The Little Boy Who Didn’t Want to Go to School

After Tibili, a young African boy, follows Crope the spider’s suggestion as to how he can avoid starting school, he discovers he wants to go after all.

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain

Peter Sis draws us into the world that shaped him–Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. World War II had ended, and the Germans had left, but Czechoslovakia was still an occupied country, this time by the Russians. As tensions between Eastern Europe and the free world intensified, borders to the West were fortified with fences and walls–the Iron Curtain had descended. Behind it were many people who wanted to be free. And as Peter grows up, he becomes one of them.

Through annotated illustrations, journals, maps, and dreamscapes, Peter Sís shows what life was like for a child who loved to draw, proudly wore the red scarf of a Young Pioneer, stood guard at the giant statue of Stalin, and believed whatever he was told to believe. But adolescence brought questions. Cracks began to appear in the Iron Curtain, and news from the West slowly filtered into the country. Sís learned about beat poetry, rock ’n’ roll, blue jeans, and Coca-Cola. He let his hair grow long, secretly read banned books, and joined a rock band. Then came the Prague Spring of 1968, and for a teenager who wanted to see the world and meet the Beatles, this was a magical time. It was short-lived, however, brought to a sudden and brutal end by the Soviet-led invasion.

A Song for Cambodia

The true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, Cambodian American musician and human rights activist, who as a young boy survived Khmer Rouge work camps by learning to play a musical instrument.

Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captivated the World

When Knut was born, the first polar bear cub at the Berlin Zoo in more than thirty years, he was no bigger than a snowball and unable to care for himself. His mother, a rescued East German circus bear, didn’t know how to take care of Knut and rejected him. Knut would have died if it weren’t for Thomas Dorflein, a zookeeper who nurtured Knut, feeding him, sleeping with him, and giving him the love and attention Knut needed to thrive. But Thomas wasn’t the only one who adopted Knut. The adorable little polar bear captured the world’s attention, and now Knut is loved around the globe.