Family life

Hello, Baby!

This beautifully photographed series of board books shows us the major stages in a baby’s first year — the first day, sitting, crawling, and walking. Mother, father, and big brother also appear. Hello, Baby! follows the first day in the life of the newborn baby as he eats, cries, sleeps, and is given a bath and cuddled. In Look Around, Baby!, the young baby looks around at the world, sits up, and begins to play and interact with his older brother. Go, Baby, Go! features the busy baby who can now crawl and practice standing up, and is constantly getting into everything, and in Not a Baby Anymore! he can walk, goes to day care, and finally enjoys his first birthday party.

Look Around, Baby!

This beautifully photographed series of board books shows us the major stages in a baby’s first year — the first day, sitting, crawling, and walking. Mother, father, and big brother also appear. In Look Around, Baby!, photos show the young baby just beginning to sit up — now he sees the world from a whole new perspective. He holds his rattle, plays peek-a-boo, and even begins to interact with his big brother. He loves to laugh but has frequent crying bouts since his teeth are bothering him. Maybe that’s why he loves to chew on his toes!

Elizabeti’s Doll (Elizabeti Series)

When her new baby brother arrives, Elizabeti decides she needs a doll that she can care for the way her mother cares for the new baby. After looking around the village, Elizabeti finds the perfect doll to love. She names her Eva. When Mama changes the new baby’s diaper, Elizabeti changes Eva’s. And one day when Eva turns up lost, Elizabeti realizes just how much she loves her special doll. Full-color illustrations.

The 10 p.m. Question

Worry-prone Frankie keeps his family secret under control — until a bold, inquisitive girl enters his life — in this warm, witty, and captivating YA novel.Twelve-year-old Frankie Parsons is a talented kid with a quirky family, a best friend named Gigs, and a voice of anxiety constantly nibbling in his head: Could that kidney-shaped spot on his chest be a galloping cancer? Are the smoke alarm batteries flat? Has his cat, The Fat Controller, given them all worms? Only Ma, who never leaves home, takes Frankie’s worries seriously. But then, it is Ma who is the cause of the most troubling question of all, the one Frankie can never bring himself to ask. When a new girl arrives at school — a daring free spirit with unavoidable questions of her own — Frankie’s carefully guarded world begins to unravel, leading him to a painful confrontation with the ultimate 10 p.m. question. Deftly told with humor, poignancy, and an endearing cast of characters, The 10 P.M. Question will touch everyone who has ever felt set apart.

The Kite Fighters

In Korea in 1473, eleven-year-old Young-sup overcomes his rivalry with his older brother Kee-sup, who as the first-born son receives special treatment from their father, and combines his kite-flying skill with Kee-sup’s kite-making skill in an attempt to attract the notice of Korea’s young king, who chooses Young-sup to fly the royal kite in the New Year kite-flying competition.

Half Brother

For thirteen years, Ben Tomlin was an only child. But all that changes when his mother brings home Zan — an eight-day-old chimpanzee. Ben’s father, a renowned behavioral scientist, has uprooted the family to pursue his latest research project: a high-profile experiment to determine whether chimpanzees can acquire advanced language skills. Ben’s parents tell him to treat Zan like a little brother. Ben reluctantly agrees. At least now he’s not the only one his father’s going to scrutinize. It isn’t long before Ben is Zan’s favorite, and Ben starts to see Zan as more than just an experiment. His father disagrees. To him, Zan is only a specimen, no more, no less. And this is going to have consequences. Soon Ben is forced to make a critical choice between what he is told to believe and what he knows to be true — between obeying his father or protecting his brother from an unimaginable fate. Half Brother isn’t just a story about a boy and a chimp. It’s about the way families are made, the way humanity is judged, the way easy choices become hard ones, and how you can’t always do right by the people and animals you love. In the hands of master storyteller Kenneth Oppel, it’s a novel you won’t soon forget.

Thunder Over Kandahar

A powerful novel of enduring friendship set amid the terror and chaos of present-day Afghanistan.Best friends Tamanna and Yasmine cannot believe their good fortune when a school is set up in their Afghan village; however, their dreams for the future are shattered when the Taliban burns down the school and threatens the teacher and students with death.As Tamanna faces an arranged marriage to an older man and the Taliban targets Yasmine’s western-educated family, the girls realize they must flee. Traveling through the heart of Taliban territory, the two unaccompanied young women find themselves in mortal danger. After suffering grave injuries, Tamanna from a fall and Yasmine from a suicide bombing, the girls are left without the one thing that has helped them survive — each other.Reunited years later in England, Tamanna and Yasmine discover that, despite the horrific events of the past, they are both driven to return home by memories of their families and a longing for their country.The book features stunning photographs by award-winning photojournalist Rafal Gerszak (The New York Times, BBC World News) that bring readers an immediate sense of the faces and landscape of Afghanistan.Filled with tension and drama, Thunder Over Kandahar paints a vivid portrait of the perils of contemporary Afghanistan.

Ivy Loves To Give

Ivy loves to give gifts, even though she doesn’t always give the right present to the right person. (The dog doesn’t need glasses! The cat doesn’t need a pacifier!) And Ivy finds that sometimes it’s hard to give BACK something you’ve borrowed and fallen in love with. But in the end, everyone is matched up with the right present, Ivy gets to keep the thing she likes best, and gives her sister the best gift of all: a big, warm hug!

Foundling (Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 1)

Meet Rossamünda foundling, a boy with a girls name who is about to begin a dangerous life in the service of the Emperor of the Half-Continent. What starts as a simple journey becomes a dangerous and complicated set of battles and decisions. Humans, monsters, unearthly creatures . . . who among these can Rossamünd trust? D. M. Cornish has created an entirely original world, grounded in his own deft, classically influenced illustrations. Foundling is a magic-laced, Dickensian adventure that will transport the reader.