Mrs. Hartwell is preparing her class to take the Big Test. Knowing they have studied and are well-prepared, she helps the students practice how to sit quietly, fill in the bubbles, and follow the directions. She even instructs them on proper morning-of-the-test nutrition. As her students grow increasingly anxious about the Big Test, Mrs. Hartwell realizes she has to teach the most valuable test-taking skill of all: learning to relax!
The bears are back in this sequel to the popular Teddy Bear Counting. Thsi time they take math tot he next level, exploring graphing, estimation, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and ordinal numbers. Playful rhymes and hands-on interaction make this book perfect for use with bear counters and other classroom manipulatives.
Did you know pumpkins have been around for 11,000 years? Or that the biggest pumpkin on record weighed over 1,300 pounds? Learn all about pumpkins - where they come from, how to grow them, and more - in this informative book that's guaranteed to squash the competition. Recipes, fun facts, and resources round out the text.
Acclaimed author Kathryn Lasky explores the nature of friendship in three delightful stories for beginning readers. Creative, impulsive Poodle and loyal, dependable Hound are an unexpected pair. Together they star gaze, plant a garden and prove that two very different individuals can not only be compatible, they can complement and help one another. This book is good for your brain because: Friendship, Helpfulness, Language Arts
Amiqqaq is excited when his family catches a bowhead whale. As his family prepares to celebrate the traditional Iñupiaq whaling feast, Amiqqaq learns about the spirit-of-the-whale.
Priscilla is only four years old when her mother is sold to another master. All Priscilla has to remember her mother by are the hollyhocks she planted by the cow pond. At age ten, Priscilla is sold to a Cherokee famiily and continues her life as a slave. She keeps hope for a better life alive by planting hollyhocks wherever she goes. At last, her forced march along the Trail of Tears brings a chance encounter that leads to her freedom. Includes an author's note with more details about this fascinating true story as well as instructions for making hollyhock dolls.
Thump, creaak, clink-clunk . . . MOOOOO! Mr. and Mrs. Noodleman don't know what to do. They've left city life behind and moved to the country with hopes of being farmers. But their dreams turn grim when nightly visits from Boo Cow scare the Noodlemans' hens so much, they won't lay any eggs! These first-time farmers are at a loss. Why is Boo Cow haunting them, and how can they banish this ghostly bovine visitor? Baehr's fun and accessible text make this book a great read-aloud. With unexpected twists and turns, Boo Cow keeps readers guessing as they attempt to solve the mystery on the Noodlemans' farm. This book is good for your brain because: Great read-aloud, encourages audience participation, promotes the importance of learning about others before we judge them
Zero is lonely in Digitaria. He can't play Addemup with the other numbers, because he has nothing to add. Join Zero as he goes on a journey to discover his place.
Get ready for an alphabet revolution! X is exasperated. Every other letter in the alphabet has so much to do and plays such important roles in making words. X expects more. He calls for a vote on a new alphabet (gasp!). According to the Alphabet Constitution, X has every right to question the status quo. But the night before the vote, X is plagued by dreams of what could happen if he were to take on another letter's job. S has to run around a lot making singular words plural, except sometimes he isn't needed at all, and sometimes he needs to bring along another letter... it was all very confusing. Then X thought he'd like to be E. E was very important and very useful. E agreed. But E was exhausted. He was in thousands of words and constantly busy. X didn't think E's job was a good idea after all. Jef Czekaj explores the order of the alphabet and the rules of spelling and grammar with hilarious consequences. His graphic-novel-style illustrations make these concepts and the story of X exciting, exhilarating, and extraordinary.
After a long night of foraging, a tired raccoons returns home to sleep in Old Tree's branches. Oblivious to the rain and wind of a raging storm, the raccoon is protected and sheltered by the tree.
Did you know pumpkins have been around for 11,000 years? Or that the biggest pumpkin on record weighed over 1,300 pounds? Learn all about pumpkins - where they come from, how to grow them, and more - in this informative book that's guaranteed to squash the competition. Recipes, fun facts, and resources round out the text.
Count up and down for Halloween fun! This humorous, rhyming book invites readers to count eerie party guests (1 to 10) as they arrive at the haunted house of the ghost. When the partygoers are frightened by a group of young trick-or-treaters, readers count backwards as the guests depart. A surprise ending offers a delightfully spooky twist. Filled with Halloween party traditions, Iza Trapani's playful art is a treat for all. This book is good for your brain because: Halloween Customs and Traditions, Math/Counting
"The course of true love never did run smooth." (A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare) Stand aside, Mr. Darcy. Keep walking, Rhett Butler. There's a new romantic hero in town. And, though he may not have all the ladies in the valley swooning with desire, he sure knows how to pitch the woo. Iza Trapani does it once again in this favorite song about a lovesick frog and his search for the perfect missus. Her exquisitely charming and truly funny illustrations that explore the lighter side of romance. Even Jane Austen would have to bow to this most amiable and irresistible story. After all, you might have to kiss a frog to find a prince.
Iza Trapani's retelling of this favorite nursery rhyme features a determined gardener and a lively cast of critters who eat all her plants and vegetables. Delightful art depicts the antics of the mischievous animals as they lead the gardener on a chase 'round the mulberry bush.
Spend a day in school! Rufus and his friends spend a day in school reading, writing, counting, singing--and making mischief in the library. Best-selling author/illustrator Iza Trapani extends fourteen nursery rhymes, including, "The Ants Go Marching," "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe," and "A Diller, a Dollar," in this celebration of school. This book is good for your brain because: Starting School, Poetry, Emergent Reader, Picture Text Connection
Join our irresistible young heroine as she wishes upon a mischievous, twinkling star. Granting her wish, the little star takes her on a dazzling journey through the swirling, iridescent lights of the night sky. Iza's flowing watercolors and reassuring verses make this journey a night wish for every star gazing child.
Will she be an artist? A cook? A writer? Sara Mee is turning one, and her family and friends gather for her tol, or first-birthday celebration. Food and presents abound, but most exciting of all is the traditional Korean prophecy game, called the toljabee, which predicts what Sara Mee will be when she grows up. A book for all cultures, What Will You Be, Sara Mee? celebrates siblings, community, and the blending of traditions. This book is good for your brain because: Multicultural, World History, Korean Traditions & Customs
Take a trip to the Arctic with Baby Beluga. Pre-readers and beginning readers meet the adorable and playful baby beluga whale. The questions that kids will have for the baby beluga are answered simply and clearly by the baby whale himself. Young learners discover that baby belugas stay close to their mothers and live in large pods, they eat shrimp and fish and other sea creatures, and they can make many sounds like chirps, moos, whistles, and more. Hello, Baby Beluga is perfect for reading aloud at story hour and bed time. Patricia Wynne illustrates baby beluga's icy blue north Atlantic home and lets children get up close to these fascinating and friendly creatures.
Books make everything better. Being a bookstore tiger is hard work. There's much patrolling, and a lot of sitting in laps at story hour, and then there's sleeping in the window display. But Raj is up to the task. He is fierce and proud, until Snowball comes along. The new cat in the bookstore informs Raj that he's just a marmalade kitty-cat. Times get tough then for the bookstore tiger. But bookstore and Raj owner Felicity, with the help of poet William Blake, knows how to fix things. In turn, with a very special book, Raj is able to fix things with Snowball. Paige Keiser's quirky, intimate illustrations invite readers to curl up and share a story, with their own tigers or a friend.
Dinner is served. What in nature could be more poetic than the hunt for food and the struggle for survival? In twenty-nine poems readers will squirm at the realities of how the animal world catches food, eats it, and becomes dinner in turn. In these quirky poems readers are introduced to many animals with disgusting eating habits, such as the marabou stork that lurks on the periphery, like a vampire in the shadows, waiting for a chance to pick at a rotting carcass. The dermestid beetle does not mind doing the dirty work, cleaning up animals on the road side and often made busy at museums cleaning up bones for exhibits. And, baby wasps hatch inside an unsuspecting caterpillar and eat their way out. Gross, cool, and extremely funny, David Clark's illustrations get to the heart (and skin and guts) of the food chain and the web of life, depicting the animal world at dinner time in all its gory glory. Back matter includes further information about the animals in the poems and the scientific terms used.
Brace yourself for the scariest field trip of your life! Bumbling, cowardly Eugene is forced to transfer to a new school in northern Michigan, in the middle of the year, and in the middle of a blizzard. Eugene is used to weird things happening in his life, but this new place feels really bad. He has no idea how bad it's going to get until he meets his new English teacher, "Ming the Merciless." To save his classmates from a fatal graduation from Ming's School of the Brass Monkeys, Eugene must deliver an unfinished book to a legendary teacher named McGinty, who is hiding in the underworld. With the help of some renegade teachers and his new friends, he begins an epic journey to find McGinty. Will Eugene survive the Cliffs of Notes and the Sea of Hot Lunches? Will he reach McGinty in time to expose Ming's plot? A great choice for the reluctant reader, Brass Monkeys is action-packed and full of twists and turns. It's sure to keep readers guessing until the very end.
5,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia during a terrible drought, Jomar and Zefa's father must send his children away to the city of Ur because he can no longer feed them. At fourteen, Jomar is old enough to apprentice with Sidah, a master goldsmith for the temple of the moongod, but there is no place for Zefa in Sidah's household. Zefa, a talented but untrained musician, is forced to play her music and sing for alms on the streets of Ur.
Bear dreams of becoming a comedian. His jokes are unbearably funny, and he wants nothing more than to make his friends laugh. But Bear has a problem. He has stage fright. When Emmy, the comic hummingbird, discovers Bear's jokes, Bear learns that there's more than one way to achieve your dream. Told in seven short chapters.
A ribbiting math adventure! After being banished to the Abyss of Zero in Multiplying Menace: The Revenge of Rumpelstiltskin, Rumpelstiltskin is back, and he's stirring up more trouble than ever. Together with his sidekick, a witch named Matilda, Rumpelstiltskin plots his revenge on Peter and uses his magical powers to divide the kingdom into frogs. Peter and his dog, Zero, must locate the Great Multiplier and find a solution that will break the Great Divide before Rumpelstiltskin has a chance to combine the two mighty math sticks. Can Peter once again save the kingdom in time, or will it meet a green and warty fate? Young readers will fall in love with this math adventure and learn all about dividing by whole numbers and fractions, as well as division rules for equations involving zero. Beautifully rendered illustrations will grab readers' attention as they learn basic math skills in a fun and inventive way. Back matter includes a summary of the basics of division.
A real-life story of adaptation and survival. Acclaimed science writer Sandra Markle and celebrated artist Alan Marks team up in this fascinating real-life story of a wolf and her pack. Years ago, an effort had been made to eliminate wolves from Yellowstone National Park. Recently, conservationists decided to reintroduce the animal to the area, relocating wolves from Canada. Family Pack introduces readers to Female 7 and Male 2, the founders of the Leopold wolf pack - the first naturally formed pack after the relocation effort.
