Americas

Materials from the Americas

Senorita Mariposa

Illustrations and easy-to-read text in English and Spanish follow monarch butterflies on their journey from Canada to Mexico. Includes author’s note on how to help protect monarch butterflies.

Albert’s Quiet Quest

Albert’s home is very loud–and all he wants to do is read! He escapes outside for some peace, and thinks he’s found it at last. But, one by one, his friends boisterously infiltrate his space until Albert just can’t take it anymore…and snaps! How will his friends react? While they leave him alone at first, they slowly return…with books in hand.

Noche Antigua

Ancient Night combines many short stories from the oral tradition, like the one of the bunny and the possum, as well as the invented rivalry between the two that serves to tell the story of what happens at night behind the maize: the adventures of a hard-working bunny and an audacious possum that come and go through the field, making the moon change its appearance and the night transform into day. This silent album is inspired in the complex and monumental Middle American thinking, which conceives the origin of things in a dual way; due to this, the also illustrator of The well of the mice represents multiple dualities, like the day and night, life and death, down and up, darkness and light, among others that when putting them with their opposite they maintain the balance.

My Sweet Orange Tree

When Zezé grows up, he wants to be a poet in a bow tie. For now the precocious young boy entertains himself by playing clever pranks on the residents of his Rio de Janeiro neighborhood, stunts for which his parents and siblings punish him severely. Lately, with his father out of work, the beatings have become harsher. Zezé’s only solace comes from his time at school, his hours secretly spent singing with a street musician, and the refuge he finds with his precious magical orange tree. When Zezé finally makes a real friend, his life begins to change, opening him up to human tenderness but also wrenching sorrow. Never out of print in Brazil since it was first published in 1968, My Sweet Orange Tree, inspired by the author’s own childhood, has been translated into many languages and has won the hearts of millions of young readers across the globe.

Lewis And Clark And Me

Seaman, Meriwether Lewis’s Newfoundland dog, describes Lewis and Clark’s expedition, which he accompanied from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean.

La Bruja y el Espantapajaros

A group of witches fly at night on their broomsticks. Unfortunately one of them in very clumsy and always falls behind. A scarecrow, who has witnesses all of the witches mishaps, decides to help her continue on her journey. He makes a special broom for her with straw from his body in the hope that she will ride it safely and without any more trouble.

Mondo babosa

Nothing out of the ordinary seems to happen: a cat wakes from its nap to chase a red butterfly. But they start to turn the pages… and the cat is the guide into a strange, textless world that will become more and more atypical, which begins and ends and begins again, like a tape of Moevius.

Doña Elba

An older lady discovers that her house is infested with dragons! Shocked, she’ll try everything to scare them away: cold water, or poison. But nothing worked. Until one day her grandson payed her a visit: for the child, those beings will be fun and draw you home, freeing your grandmother.