Materials from France
Rita is a little girl with a big personality. Whatsit is a dog without a name. Rita enjoys dressing up running around and being in charge. Whatsit enjoys chewing on things sleeping and cheating at checkers. Together they are perfect friends. In the first book of a series, Rita is not pleased with any of her birthday presents until one of them starts running away. Rita is surprised to receive a dog for her birthday, and she is even more shocked when she discovers that the dog can talk.
After intentionally getting himself expelled from Realm One, Linus Hoppe believed he would experience more of real life. But life in inferior Realm Two is a nightmare. For months Linus has been imprisoned in a factory, where he toils on an assembly line. At night, he’s so tired that he no longer dreams of a future, of the destiny he wanted to create for himself. As for his family and friends, he fears he’ll never see them again. He especially misses Chem and Yosh, his co-conspirators in fooling the Great Processor. What made them think they could change society’s rigid hierarchy? Ready to give up, Linus must somehow regain hope and the will to fight for his freedom.
Polo’s life is never boring. A sea voyage under snowy skies leads Polo to open a magical door and find a new fire-breathing friend.
Zarafa is a beautiful and gentle giraffe. The ruler of Egypt offers her as a gift to the king of France. She sails up the Nile by felucca, crosses the sea by brigantine and walks the last five hundred miles to Paris. People love it. And they love her, meeting and greeting her along the way, cheering her on. Afterward, the grateful French king places Zarafa in his own royal garden, where all of Paris comes to visit and love her.
Wearing pizza buckles on their belts and wielding water balloons,Garibaldi and his army defeat the rascally French, and the world-famous Garibaldi’s biscuits are born! Ralph Steadman’s cast of quirky characters and witty cartoons bring this foot note of history to life.
The year is 1783. On a cozy French farm, there lives a sheep with an impossible dream: She wants to fly. Mouton’s friend Canard the duck is sympathetic, but Cocorico the rooster insists that, without wings, Mouton will never take off. Still, Mouton is full of hope and determination—perhaps just enough to make her impossible dream come true.
Young Jane — or Jenny, as she is called — is a girl with a head full of questions. Surrounded by her busy parents and brothers, Jenny finds a place for her thoughts in the companionship of her older sister, Cassandra. Theirs is a country life full of balls and visits, at which conversation inevitably centers on one topic: marriage. But the arrival of their worldly-wise cousin Eliza disrupts Jenny’s world, bringing answers to some of her questions and providing a gem of an idea.
“Paul, 10, is fascinated by insects, an interest engendered by his father, Henri Fabre, who has studied the creatures for most of his life. The boy and his two younger sisters help Père gather material for a textbook, often accompanying him on field trips into their untamed backyard…Admirable.”-School Library Journal
Toby Lolness may be just one and a half millimeters tall, but he’s the most wanted person in his world — the world of the great oak Tree. Toby’s father has made a groundbreaking discovery: the Tree itself is alive, lowing with vital energy, and there may even be a world beyond it. Greedy developers itch to exploit this forbidden knowledge, risking permanent damage to their natural world. But Toby’s father has refused to reveal his findings, causing the family to be exiled to the lower branches. Only Toby has managed to escape.
Polo’s life is never boring. In this adventure, a flood carries Polo to a secret island circus where he becomes a world-class tiger-taming magician to the crowd’s delight.