The Most Magnificent Idea book offers a terrific character education lesson in patience and perseverance. It will provide inspiration to makers and visionary creators everywhere, encouraging them to believe that an idea is sure to come if they just give it the opportunity and if it comes from the heart.
A heroic girl in Mumbai fights for her belief that water should be for everyone.
A collection of ancient tales of courage, translated faithfully to the Vietnamese oral tradition, features stories of prowling panthers, brocaded mandarins, hawking merchants, and fairy spirits.
Imani is a young Maasi girl with a loving mother and a desire to do something great. When she decides she wants to touch the moon, she works hard to reach her goal, even in the face of teasing from the naysayers around her.
Near a majestic mountain in a vast jungle with many mango trees, it has not rained for weeks and weeks. The village well and pond are dry. Monkey and his friends look everywhere for water, but they have no luck. And then Monkey remembers a story his mama used to tell him, a story about how peacocks can make it rain by dancing. So he sets out to see if the story is true…
Mama Nsoso knows her chicks need a warm new house, but each day when they set out to collect sticks and mud she is distracted by good things to eat, while Little Chick stays busy gathering the building materials himself.
Lizzie and Karl’s mother is a zoo keeper; the family has become attached to an orphaned elephant named Marlene, who will be destroyed as a precautionary measure so she and the other animals don’t run wild should the zoo be hit by bombs. The family persuades the zoo director to let Marlene stay in their garden instead. When the city is bombed, the family flees with thousands of others, but how can they walk the same route when they have an elephant in tow, and keep themselves safe? Along the way, they meet Peter, a Canadian navigator who risks his own capture to save the family. As Michael Morpurgo writes in an author’s note, An Elephant in the Garden is inspired by historical truths, and by his admiration for elephants, “the noblest and wisest and most sensitive of all creatures.” Here is a story that brings together an unlikely group of survivors whose faith in kindness and love proves the best weapon of all.
Born into a traveling gypsy family, young Django Reinhardt taught himself guitar at an early age. He was soon acclaimed as the “Gypsy Genius” and “Prodigy Boy,” but one day his world changed completely when a fire claimed the use of his fretting hand. Folks said Django would never play again, but with passion and perseverance he was soon setting the world’s concert stages ablaze. Bonnie Christensen’s gorgeous oil paintings and jazzy, syncopated text perfectly depict the man and his music.
In early August 2010, the unthinkable happened when a mine collapsed in CopiapÓ, Chile, and 33 miners were trapped 2,000 feet below the surface. For sixty-nine days they lived on meager resources and increasingly poor air quality. When they were finally rescued, the world watched with rapt attention and rejoiced in the amazing spirit and determination of the miners. What could have been a terrible tragedy became an amazing story of survival.
In the midst of a fearsome blizzard, a weary traveler seeks refuge from the cold “Good evening, Father, I’m so glad I found you. Would you, by any chance, have a room where I could spend the night?” “Oh,” said the old man. “I’m not the father of the house, You’ll have to ask my father. He’s around back, in the kitchen.” And so the travler is sent on a journey within his journey, arriving at a surprising destination.