A girl spends her vacation at her grandfather’s house, but everything changes when he brings home a young elephant.
Vacation
Europe
Materials from Europe
Troublemakers
When east London is targeted by a bomber, fifteen-year-old Alena, raised by her half-brother and his boyfriend, becomes increasingly rebellious and insistent on learning about her long-dead activist mother.
The Sound of Freedom
Life is becoming dangerous for the Jews of Krakow in 1936 with incidents of violence and persecution increasing day by day. Twelve-year-old Anna begs her father to leave Poland, but he is reluctant to give up his position as an acclaimed clarinetist in the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra. After barely escaping from an attack by a group of violent thugs, it becomes clear that the family must leave. Anna’s father auditions for the famous Bronislaw Huberman, a world renowned violinist, who is searching for Jewish musicians to play in a new orchestra in Palestine. This poignant story is based on real events in pre-war Poland and Palestine. After saving 700 Jews and their families, Bronislaw Huberman went on to establish what later became the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
The House Of Lost And Found
Niles lives all alone in a big dirty house filled with memories of the people who used to live there. Then one day, a little boy appears on his doorstep and asks Niles to take care of his plant. Astonished, Niles takes the pot of dirt, and wonders what to do with it. As a seedling appears, Niles realizes how empty and lonely his house is and begins to care for the plant, his house and himself. By the time the little boy returns his flower has bloomed into a beautiful poppy and Niles, and his house, are filled with hope again.
Astrid the Unstoppable
Speed and self-confidence that’s Astrid’s motto, Nicknamed “the little thunderbolt,” she loves to spend her days racing down the hillside on her skis or sled, singing merrily as she goes, and drinking hot chocolate made from real chocolate bars with her grumpy best friend and godfather, Gunnvald. She just wishes there were other children to share in her hair-raising adventures. But her world is about to be turned upside down, first by the arrival of a family with children to her village, and then by a mysterious woman whom everyone but Astrid seems to know.
Eye Spy: Wild Ways Animals See The World
Ever wonder what your cat is watching through the window? Or how having eyes on the sides of its head changes the world for a horse? And what would life be like seeing in 5 colors instead of only 3? After a whirlwind tour of how eyes work, children will lift the flaps to find out how animals as different as dogs, owls, and chameleons see the same scene.
Night Shift
In Night Shift, Debi Gliori has used her own personal experience with depression to create moving pieces of art that really capture how depression can feel, the way it isolates you from the world and makes even simple everyday tasks seem impossible. But, more importantly, she also shows that the feelings don’t last forever and that you can come out on the other side.
Featured in WOW Review Volume XI, Issue 2.
The Day War Came
A powerful and necessary picture book – the journey of a child forced to become a refugee when war destroys everything she has ever known. Imagine if, on an ordinary day, war came. Imagine it turned your town to rubble. Imagine going on a long and difficult journey – all alone. Imagine finding no welcome at the end of it. Then imagine a child who gives you something small but very, very precious … When the government refused to allow 3000 child refugees to enter this country in 2016, Nicola Davies was so angry she wrote a poem. It started a campaign for which artists contributed drawings of chairs, symbolising a seat in a classroom, education, kindness, the hope of a future. The poem has become this book, movingly illustrated by Rebecca Cobb, which should prove a powerful aid for explaining the ongoing refugee crisis to younger readers.
Featured in WOW Review Volume XII, Issue 2 and Volume XI, Issue 2.
The Freemason’s Daughter
“Saying goodbye to Scotland is the hardest thing Jenna MacDuff has had to do– until she met Lord Pembroke. Jenna’s small clan has risked their lives traveling the countryside as masons, secretly drumming up support and arms for the exiled King James Stuart to retake the British throne. But their next job brings them into enemy territory: England. Jenna’s father repeatedly warns her to trust no one, but when the Duke of Keswick hires the clan to build a garrison on his family estate, it seems she cannot hide her capable mind from the duke’s inquisitive son, Lord Alex Pembroke. Nor her growing attraction to him. When he begins to return those forbidden feelings, she finds that she’s thrust into a precarious position– keeping her newfound friendship to the duke’s son a secret from her father, while concealing her father’s treason from an increasingly attendant Lord Pembroke. But there’s a covert plan behind the building of the garrison. Will Jenna decide to keep her family’s mutinous secrets and assist her clan’s cause? Or protect the you man she’s falling for and keep him safe? No matter which she chooses, someone will pay a deadly price”–Jacket.
Sylvia’s Bookshop
Told by the bookstore itself, Sylvia’s Bookshop tells the story of the legendary Shakespeare and Company, its owner Sylvia Beach, and the many great writers who gathered there to meet, read, and remind us that books are more than the words on the page.