My Favorite Time of Year


Book Description

A family enjoys the weather and activities of every season of the year.




Our Favorite Day of the Year


Book Description

“Gorgeously inviting illustrations and a joyful theme…the consummate first day read.” —Shelf Awareness (starred review) A heartwarming picture book following a group of boys from different backgrounds throughout the school year as they become the best of friends. Musa’s feeling nervous about his first day of school. He’s not used to being away from home and he doesn’t know any of the other kids in his class. And when he meets classmates Moisés, Mo, and Kevin, Musa isn’t sure they’ll have much in common. But over the course of the year, the four boys learn more about each other, the holidays they celebrate, their favorite foods, and what they like about school. The more they share with each other, the closer they become, until Musa can’t imagine any better friends. In this charming story of friendship and celebrating differences, young readers can discover how entering a new friendship with an open mind and sharing parts of yourself brings people together. And the calendar of holidays at the end of the book will delight children as they identify special events they can celebrate with friends throughout the year.




Love Is My Favorite Thing


Book Description

Starring an enthusiastic pooch whose joy, optimism and love know no bounds, this lively picture book is based on Emma Chichester Clark’s own dog, and joyfully celebrates unconditional love. Plum has lots of favorite things—catching sticks, her bear, her bed—but really, LOVE is her absolute favorite thing. She loves her family and all the things they do together. Sometimes, however, Plum’s exuberance causes trouble, and she just can’t help being naughty. But fortunately, love is such a great thing that even when she makes mistakes, Plum’s family still adores her.




My Side of the Mountain


Book Description

"Should appeal to all rugged individualists who dream of escape to the forest."—The New York Times Book Review Sam Gribley is terribly unhappy living in New York City with his family, so he runs away to the Catskill Mountains to live in the woods—all by himself. With only a penknife, a ball of cord, forty dollars, and some flint and steel, he intends to survive on his own. Sam learns about courage, danger, and independence during his year in the wilderness, a year that changes his life forever. “An extraordinary book . . . It will be read year after year.” —The Horn Book




The Murder Book


Book Description

In this exciting and atmospheric second entry of this Cold Case Investigation mystery series Detective Lauren Riley is determined to bring the attacker that left her for dead to justice . . . even if it is a fellow police officer. Cold Case Detectives Lauren Riley and her partner Shane Reese are helping the Homicide Squad after a murder earlier in the day left the department short-staffed. As their shift ends, Reese leaves Lauren alone only for her to be savagely beaten and stabbed from behind minutes later. Lauren didn’t see her attacker, but knows it was a fellow police officer from the city-issued boots she glimpsed as she passed out. Stolen during the attack is the Murder Book, which contains evidence on all active cold cases. Without the book, old homicides became almost impossible to track down. Who in police headquarters would try to kill a fellow officer? Why’d they suddenly want the Murder Book? Although hurt and on enforced leave, nothing will stop Lauren from seeking answers . . . but who on the force can she trust and how safe is she within her own home?




Our Favorite Day


Book Description

Follows Papa and his granddaughter as they spend another Thursday together.




I Had a Favorite Dress


Book Description

Open up a fresh and stylish story about growing up and keeping hold of your favorite memories. As the year passes, the narrator’s favorite dress goes through a series of creative changes, from dress to shirt to tank top to scarf and so on, until all that’s left of it is a good memory. Assisted by her patient and crafty mama, the narrator finds that when disaster strikes her favorite things, she doesn’t need to make mountains out of molehills—she “makes molehills out of mountains” instead! Structured around the days of the week, the story is also illustrated to show the passing of the seasons, a perfect complement to the themes of growing older and keeping hold (and letting go) of special mementos. Praise for I Had a Favorite Dress "A spunky story about adjusting to change with creativity and style. Tailor-made, so to speak, for the Etsy generation of DIY enthusiasts.” –Publishers Weekly “Everyone is smiling in the buoyant confections created by illustrator Julia Denos—including, it’s fair to say, young readers looking at them. Endearing picture book.” –Wall Street Journal “What could have been yet another example of kindergarten consumerism instead becomes one of resourcefulness and resilience.” –New York Times “Denos’s multimedia illustrations reinforce the narrator’s vibrant personality and the amazing transformations of the dress while capturing the action and emotion of the story. This book is sure to capture the imaginations of would-be seamstresses; children who can’t bear to part with a favorite item; and those who want to reduce, reuse, recycle.” –School Library Journal “Breezy in style, they smartly stitch each scene of alteration as the not-so-little girl sashays through the days of the week and the seasons. A charming interpretation of an old story that will speak to young fashionistas.” –Kirkus Reviews




Wandering Time


Book Description

Fleeing a failed marriage and haunted by ghosts of his past, Luis Alberto Urrea jumped into his car several years ago and headed west. Driving cross-country with a cat named Rest Stop, Urrea wandered the West from one year's Spring through the next. Hiking into aspen forests where leaves "shiver and tinkle like bells" and poking alongside creeks in the Rockies, he sought solace and wisdom. In the forested mountains he learned not only the names of trees—he learned how to live. As nature opened Urrea's eyes, writing opened his heart. In journal entries that sparkle with discovery, Urrea ruminates on music, poetry, and the landscape. With wonder and spontaneity, he relates tales of marmots, geese, bears, and fellow travelers. He makes readers feel mountain air "so crisp you feel you could crunch it in your mouth" and reminds us all to experience the magic and healing of small gestures, ordinary people, and common creatures. Urrea has been heralded as one of the most talented writers of his generation. In poems, novels, and nonfiction, he has explored issues of family, race, language, and poverty with candor, compassion, and often astonishing power. Wandering Time offers his most intimate work to date, a luminous account of his own search for healing and redemption.




The Power of Positive Pranking


Book Description

Green Peas is our name and pranking’s our game! A symphony of alarm clocks at assembly? Yep, that was us. A stampede of fluffy guinea pigs? It’s next on our agenda. But for me, Cookie and Zeke, it’s about more than just fun. We’re determined to make a difference. And when the adults won’t listen, us kids will find a way to be heard – as long as we can stay out of detention! No activist is too small, no prank too big... and things are about to get personal.




My Favorite Thing is Monsters


Book Description

Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late ’60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes, filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster magazines iconography. Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold. When Karen’s investigation takes us back to Anka’s life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal, the political, the past, and the present converge.