The town of Hamelin is infested with rats. The people are at their wits’ end. Then a strange man arrives at the town gates…The Pied Piper promises to help rid the town of the rats. But will they keep their promise to pay him? This classic version of the traditional tale is beautifully brought to life by Maren Briswalter’s gentle, charming illustrations.
Europe
Materials from Europe
Sleep Tight, Anna Banana!
Anna Banana can’t settle down tonight, even though her stuffed animal friends are tired and just want to sleep. They suffer through delay after delay and excuse after excuse, until Anna Banana is finally sleepy. And then, it’s time for their revenge! Her stuffed animals decide to teach her a lesson about respecting others at bedtime.
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
The creator of Happy and Friends illustrates some of childhood’s most beloved songs from “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic,” and from “I’m a Little Teapot” to “The Wheels on the Bus” in this book and CD set.
City Cat
A plucky stray cat takes a Grand Tour in Kate Banks’ story of a family on a European vacation. As the family travels from one city to the next, the cat finds its own means–by bus, boat, train, truck, and bike–to tag along on the trip, visiting historic landmarks like Buckingham Palace and the Cathedral of Notre Dame along the way. Readers will pore over the spreads to find where City Cat is hiding in each city, and detailed backmatter explains the history behind the sites in each locale.
How Does My Garden Grow?
Sophie lives in the city, and her vegetables come from the supermarket. Then she goes to visit her grandparents in the countryside — and soon discovers how much there is to learn about how things grow! Sophie helps her grandfather through the different seasons, finding out about mulching onions, eating flowers, weeding, bees, making salad, catching beetles, digging, earthing up, picking and composting. When winter comes, Sophie has to go home — but her grandfather has one last surprise for her.
The Pilot and the Little Prince
This story is the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of Little Prince. He was born in France in 1900, when airplanes were just being invented. Antoine dreamed of flying and grew up to be a pilot—and that was when his adventures began. He found a job delivering mail by plane, which had never been done before. He and his fellow pilots traveled to faraway places and discovered new ways of getting from one place to the next. Antoine flew over mountains and deserts. He battled winds and storms. He tried to break aviation records, and sometimes he even crashed. From his plane, Antoine looked down on the earth and was inspired to write about his life and his pilot-hero friends in memoirs and in fiction. Peter Sís’s remarkable biography celebrates the author of The Little Prince, one of the most beloved books in the world.
A New Day
This classic, much-loved board book without text leads young children through the rhythms of the day. The fun, simple illustrations show children doing everyday activities such as getting up, having breakfast, feeding the ducks, making lunch, playing and enjoying a bedtime story. This chunky book is perfect for little hands, and children will love to spot the detail in each picture.
The Race
Get ready, get set, GO! A group of caribou gather together to run a race. Starting at the beginning of the course, readers join in the fun as the caribou engage in some rather outlandish tricks in order to be the first to cross the finish line. (Banana skins, for example, are an effective way to get rid of some opponents.) But in the midst of this titanic struggle for victory, some of the caribou stop to question the merits of their single-minded pursuit of winning at all costs. In the end, the reader is left to decide who the real winner is in this cautionary tale about the ups and downs of winning and losing. Illustrations are cut-paper collage.
Picnic
One day, Boy and Girl head down the hill with a picnic basket and meet a fancily dressed Sheep, Pig, and Duck. They all set off to find the perfect place to sit outside — until they see Bull coming! A short-lived chase segues into a gentle interactive text as the friends wend their way from an idyllic outdoor world to a welcoming house on a hill.
The Nowhere Box
George’s little brothers wreck his toys and his games and trail after him wherever he goes. Try as he might, there’s just no hiding from them. George has had enough! So he commandeers an empty washing machine box and goes to the one place his brothers can’t follow: Nowhere. Nowhere is amazing! It’s magnificent! It’s also, however, free of pirates and dragons and . . . well, anyone at all. From exciting new talent Sam Zuppardi comes an all-too-relatable story of an older brother who knows when he needs his space and when he needs his siblings.