Dangerous Waters

Determined to focus on work rather than books, as his father had, twelve-year-old Patrick Waters leaves Belfast as a steward on the Titanic, but the very wealthy Harry Widener arranges to tutor him, drawing Patrick into association with thieves seeking Harry’s very rare edition of Francis Bacon’s Essays.

The Wild Book

Fefa struggles with words. She has word blindness, or dyslexia, and the doctor says she will never read or write. Every time she tries, the letters jumble and spill off the page, leaping and hopping away like bullfrogs. How will she ever understand them? But her mother has an idea. She gives Fefa a blank book filled with clean white pages. “Think of it as a garden,” she says. Soon Fefa starts to sprinkle words across the pages of her wild book. She lets her words sprout like seedlings, shaky at first, then growing stronger and surer with each new day. And when her family is threatened, it is what Fefa has learned from her wild book that saves them.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 3

Taming Horrible Harry

This is a charming story about one really bad monster who learns to change his ways. Written originally in French, and illustrated with delightfully ghoulish paintings by the Québecois artist known simply as Rogé, Taming Horrible Harry is a wonderful tale about the power of stories. At the gates of a beautiful forest, Harry the monster lies in wait. One day, as monsters are wont to do, he frightens a little girl, who runs away leaving behind a peculiar object. Harry picks it up, turns it over, bites it … spits it out, and throws it down in a fury! He wonders what kind of a thing he has found. As it turns out, the object is a book … and one way or another, Harry learns to read it, and his life is changed forever. This delightful story will enchant both young readers and their parents, teachers, and librarians, as they discover together, the magic of reading.

What Are You Doing?

It’s the first day of school, but before he goes Chepito runs outside to play. He comes across all kinds of people in his neighborhood — a man reading a newspaper, a young girl enjoying a comic, a couple of tourists consulting a guidebook, an archeologist studying hieroglyphics. “Why, why, why?” he sings, and they each have an answer for him. Later that day Chepito discovers for himself that reading is catching, and he even brings home a book to “read” to his younger sister.

Biblioburro

Luis loves to read, but soon his house in Colombia is so full of books there’s barely room for the family. What to do? Then he comes up with the perfect solution–a traveling library! He buys two donkeys–Alfa and Beto–and travels with them throughout the land, bringing books and reading to the children in faraway villages.

Featured in WOW Review Volume XII, Issue 3

Lola Loves Stories

Lola loves to hear Daddy read a new library book each night, an activity that spurs her imagination and results in inventive play the next day.