A picture-book celebration of the ordinary people—grownups and kids—who hold our world together by going about their daily lives and work.We celebrate cops, firefighters, and soldiers, and rightly so. But let’s also celebrate teachers, bus drivers, grocery clerks, mail carriers, and the other folks who keep the world spinning around every day. And let’s give a nod to kids, too—kids who are kind and brave and help each other. They’re heroes too. In structure, flow, ...

Common Critters celebrates neighborhood wildlife in verse. A familiar cast of characters—worms, slugs, caterpillars, ladybugs, robins, mourning doves, houseflies, spiders, squirrels, skunks, and others—crawls, runs, buzzes, and flits through these lively poems, which show how exotic these seemingly ordinary creatures really are.Dan Tavis’s humorous illustrations crank up the delight, and a child wanting to learn more will find it in the natural-history backmatter. ...

* MOONBEAM GOLD AWARD ** GROWING GOOD KIDS AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, AMERICAN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY AND NATIONAL MASTER JUNIOR GARDENER PROGRAM *Milk doesn't just appear in your refrigerator, nor do apples grow in the bowl on the kitchen counter.Before We Eat has been adopted by the USDA’s Agriculture in the Classroom program.Before we eat, many people work very hard—planting grain, catching fish,...

Told in a series of poems, from haiku to sonnets to free verse, The Best and Hardest Thing is the story of a good girl who makes a bad choice—and then has to figure out where to go from there.Fifteen-year-old Molly Biden has always been studious, dependable, some might even say saintly. And she’s sick of herself. So when she spots mysterious bad boy Grady Dillon, it doesn’t take Molly long to devise a plan to become someone new, someone who will attract Gr...

This book about a child's simple faith is one that children will long remember--and adults will love to share.When Wanda discovers a thornbush growing in the empty lot at the corner of Fillmore and Hudson, she's quite sure it's a rosebush all ready to bloom. So she clears away the trash, checks on it every day, and brings water from the butcher shop across the street. But no roses appear. Wanda's neighbors and friends are all doubtful, but when she invites them to a tea party in he...