Balderdash!

This rollicking and fascinating picture book biography chronicles the life of the first pioneer of children’s books—John Newbery himself. While most children’s books in the 18th century contained lessons and rules, John Newbery imagined them overflowing with entertaining stories, science, and games.

Raymond

Raymond the dog is just your regular family pet until, one day, he has a thought: couldn’t he just sit at the table? Isn’t that what families do together? Soon Raymond begins to leave all his canine ways behind, and so do all the other dogs in town. Dogs go to the movies; dogs go out for coffee; and Raymond lands a high-powered journalism job at DOGUE magazine. But is Raymond’s new gig all work and no play? He doesn’t even have time for family dinner! Maybe, just maybe, Raymond misses the dog’s life.

Kings of the Castle

George didn’t want to waste the night moon bathing. He wanted to build a sand castle that would turn any monster green with envy! But when George meets the strangest creature he has ever seen, the night takes an unexpected turn.

John Ronald’s Dragons

John Ronald loved dragons. He liked to imagine dragons when he was alone, and with his friends, and especially when life got hard or sad. After his mother died and he had to live with a cold-hearted aunt, he looked for dragons. He searched for them at his boarding school. And when he fought in a Great War, he felt as if terrible, destructive dragons were everywhere. But he never actually found one, until one day, when he was a grown man but still very much a boy at heart, when he decided to create one of his own.

The Whopper

This humorous, quirky story is about a little boy who tells a lie, only to be followed around by his guilt in the form of the Whopper, a hungry and persistent monster. As Percy’s guilt grows, so does the Whopper, until finally the Whopper EATS Percy! Percy at last realizes that he must tell the truth in order to keep the Whopper from growing any bigger.