Very Last First Time

Author	Wende Devlin
ISBN	0819304980

Today was Thanksgiving, Grandmother's favorite day of the year. The cooking was done and her famous cranberry bread was cooling on the wooden board. Every year Grandmother invited a guest for dinner and allowed Maggie to do the same. "Ask someone poor or lonely," she always said.

She wasn't...

Author	Marjorie Priceman
ISBN	0679880836

Illus. in full color. An apple pie is easy to make...if the market is open. But if the market is closed, the world becomes your grocery store. This deliciously silly recipe for apple pie takes readers around the globe to gather ingredients. First hop a steamboat to Italy for the finest semolina wheat....

Author	Lauren A. Mills
ISBN	0316574074

3.5 Lovely illustrations and a pleasant story that is perhaps a bit too predictable and "full of heart" for its own good about a poor girl whose family cannot afford to buy her a coat--thus, she cannot go to school in the winter--and the kind women who eventually make her a quilted coat of scraps. She can...

Author	Carol Talley
ISBN	1559420286

3.5 STARS. Sweet story about a tomcat who takes care of two stranded kittens--begrudgingly at first, then with great affection and interest. As the Note to Parents in the back of the book mentions, it is sometimes difficult to find stories where a male figure is in the nurturing role, so I do appreciate...

Author	Robert McCloskey
ISBN	0140502874

Lentil can’t sing or whistle and he loves music, so he plays the harmonica. The story is set up so that Lentil can save the day with his harmonica. How can someone playing a harmonica save the day, well, it's a great story and you should read it.

I love Robert’s drawings in this story and it’s...

Author	Mark Shasha
ISBN	1930900163

On his way to help grandmother and relatives at a seaside hot dog stand, seven-year-old Mark stops on the beach to pick up a small jellylike substance that he places in a bag of seawater. A moonlight ride with Gram on a fishing boat takes them out on the ocean where thousands of moonjellies shimmer, and the...

Author	Masako Matsuno
ISBN	1930900201

A child's delight in a new pair of shoes is the same all over the world, whether the shoes are patent-leather sandals, straw alpargatas, deerskin moccasins or wooden clogs. For Mako, a little Japanese girl, the new shoeswere clogs painted with red lacquer that shone beautifully. This is the story of...

Author

Munro Leaf

A Caldecott Honor Book by the creators of the beloved Story of Ferdinand.

Wee Gillis lives in Scotland. He is an orphan, and he spends half of each year with his mother's people in the Lowlands, while the other half finds him in the Highlands with his father's kin. Both sides of Gillis's family...

Author	Tomie dePaola
ISBN	0156181924

I found this book at my Uncle's house during our family reunion. He loves clowns and he was also a minister at a big church in North Carolina, so I know that they got this book when my cousin was young because he loves clowns. This also has a religious theme to it so this is like the perfect story for him. So, it...

Author	Rukhsana Khan
ISBN	0670062871

Rubina has been invited to her first birthday party, and her mother, Ami, insists that she bring her little sister along. Rubina is mortified, but she can't convince Ami that you just don't bring your younger sister to your friend's party. So both girls go, and not only does Sana demand to win every game,...

Author	Robbin Gourley
ISBN	0618158367

Long before the natural-food movement gained popularity, before greenmarkets sprouted across the United States, Edna Lewis championed purity of ingredients, regional cuisine, and the importance of bringing food directly from the farm to the table. She was a chef when female chefs—let alone...

Author	Marjorie Flack
ISBN	0020430906

A sweet picture book where Danny teams up with the animals to find his mother the perfect gift.

Trying to find the perfect birthday present for his mother isn’t easy for Danny. The hen offers eggs, the goose feathers, and the sheep wool. But mother already has those things. Then the cow suggests...

Author	Penda Diakité
ISBN	0439662265

Coretta Scott King Honor author/artist Baba Wague Diakite and his 12-year-old daughter, Penda, create a charming, original adventure story about losing a first tooth while visiting family in Mali.

More than anything, Amina wants to lose her loose tooth while visiting her family in Mali,...

Author	David Macaulay
ISBN	0618168265

High above the rooftops of Rome, Angelo begins his work restoring the façade of a once glorious church. As with every project, he starts his final masterpiece by clearing away the years of debris left behind by the many pigeons who nest in the nooks and crannies of Rome’s great architecture. There,...

Author	Pija Lindenbaum
ISBN	9129667348

First let me say that I appreciate a picture book featuring a gay family member that does not make a "big deal" out of the sexual orientation factor. Mia's uncle is presented as her uncle, that's that, and although he is clearly gay and the ensuing "conflict" in the story involves Mia's coming to accept...

Author	Margarita Engle
ISBN	0805089373

In the Middle Ages, people believed that insects were evil, born from mud in a process called spontaneous generation. Maria Merian was only a child, but she disagreed. She watched carefully as caterpillars spun themselves cocoons, which opened to reveal summer birds, or butterflies and moths. Maria...

Author	Steve Jenkins
ISBN	0545046513

Caldecott Honor winner Steve Jenkins presents a fascinating look at the bones of the human body as compared to the bones of animals, and shows them off!
This book is far from skinny -- it's the definitive nonfiction title about human and animal bones, delivered with in-your-face accuracy and intrigue....

Author	Jim LaMarche
ISBN	0064438562

Inspired by various experiences from his childhood, Jim LaMarche, beloved illustrator of A Story for Bear and The Elves and the Shoemaker, brings this touching story about one boy's unexpected summer as a river rat to life with his bold, picturesque paintings.

Nicky isn't one bit happy about...

Author	Thomas Locker
ISBN	0140546138

Beautiful illustrations reminiscent of the Dutch masters. My only criticisms are that they never show the hole in the dike, meaning that children who are unfamiliar with the concept will have difficulty picturing it. Also, the text prefers to describe what characters said instead of having actual...

Author	Jane Yolen
ISBN	0316968609

This one caught my eye because I'm a fan of Barbara Cooney's ethereal artwork, but there's a fascinating, though ultimately sad story here - the flooding of a New England valley to create the Quabbin Reservoir.

So it was voted in Boston to drown our towns
that the people of the city might drink.

We...

Author	Nancy Coffelt
ISBN	0316882690

Told from the point of view of a young child whose parents are divorced, Fred Stays with Me! follows a girl and her dog, Fred, from one parent's house to the other's, giving her a sense of continuity and stability. With a simple text and childlike language, the story expresses and addresses a child's concerns,...

Author	Mary Stolz
ISBN	0064432564

Storm in the night.
Thunder like mountains blowing up.
Lightning licking the navy-blue sky.
Rain streaming down the windows,
babbling in the downspouts.
And Grandfather? . . .
And Thomas? . . .
And Ringo, the cat?
They were in the dark.
Too early to go to bed, and...

Author	Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN	0064433609

No one writes like this anymore. I think I have said this before in my marathon Patrica MacLachlan picture books reading this week but, it is usually poor writing, stupid rhymes or just ridiculous themes. This is art!

Her books are great literature for kids. I saw a review on here that someone...

Author	Ruth Heller
ISBN	0698116410

“To further a child’s grasp of the meaning and function of adjectives, this gorgeous picture book provides enrichment and depth of understanding… A visual and auditory feast, designed to make language discovery appealing and rewarding.”
—Publishers Weekly

“An excellent...