After asking several passing trains for help over the hill, a little blue train agrees to help the stranded toys. Even though she is small, the blue train tries her best to bring the toys to the children on the other side of the hill.

    Things were just fine around here until UNICORN showed up.So what if he can fly?Or make it rain cupcakes?And turn stuff into gold?Big deal. I can do some cool stuff too, like...Hey! What are you doing? Why are you opening the book?He's just going to tell you how great he is. Blah, blah, blah.Go ahead. Just don't say I didn't warn you.Dopey Unicorn.

    The loud, unanimous comment from her classmates is: “Ugly, ugly, very ugly.” Steadfast, when all the girls have copied her ponytail, she resolves to try a new style. With true Munsch flair, each of Stephanie’s ponytails is more outrageous than the last, while the cast of copycats grows and grows.

    When her classmate Angela wears a red bow in her hair, Ruby comes back from lunch wearing a red bow, too. When Angela wears a flowered dress, suddenly Ruby's wearing one, too. Fortunately, Ruby's teacher knows a better way to help Ruby fit in--by showing how much fun it is to be herself!

    Children will be entranced by Little Bear's trip to the moon, his birthday party, and his wishes and adventures.This is the first of the five classic books about Little Bear, introducing the funny and strikingly childlike bear cub and his friends. The combination of Else Holmelund Minarik's simple, yet eloquent, stories and Maurice Sendak's warm, tender illustrations have made this beloved character an enduring favorite among beginning readers.

    When all the shoppers have gone home for the night, Corduroy climbs down from the shelf to look for his missing button. It's a brave new world! He accidentally gets on an elevator that he thinks must be a mountain and sees the furniture section that he thinks must be a palace. He tries to pull a button off the mattress, but he ends up falling off the bed and knocking over a lamp. The night watchman hears the crash, finds Corduroy, and puts him back on the shelf downstairs. The next morning, he finds that it's his lucky day! A little girl buys him with money she saved in her piggy bank and takes him home to her room. Corduroy decides that this must be home and that Lisa must be his friend. Youngsters will never get tired of this toy-comes-alive tale with a happy ending, so you may also want to seek out Dan Freeman's next creation, A Pocket for Corduroy. (Ages 3 to 8)

    This award-winning book by Janell Cannon has sold over 500,000 copies and was on the bestseller list for more than two years.

    Or not. Nick Bruel's first picture book about Bad Kitty since the uproarious Poor Puppy in 2007 is full of rhyming mayhem... and Christmas cheer.

    But the other colors are always leaving him out. So he decides to create his own project: an all-gray book. Once upon a time, there lived a wolf, a kitten, and a hippo…Gray just knows it’s going to be perfect. But as he adds page after page, the Primary and Secondary colors show up…and they aren’t quite so complimentary.A book within a book, this colorful tale explores the ideas of fitting in, appreciating others, and looking at things from another perspective and also uses personality and wit to introduce basic color concepts.

    He's exhausted. All he wants is to go to sleep. Meet Duck, Bear's persistent next-door neighbor. All he wants is to hang out . . . with Bear.Jory John, author of All My Friends Are Dead, and Benji Davies join together to create this standout hilarious picture book that will make bedtime memorable.

    Consistent new sounds are added gradually, until young readers have read books with all letters of the alphabet (except Q). Short vowels and three-letter words in simple sentences make Bob Books Set 1 a fun confidence builder. With little books, come big success. (TM)

    You see, his teacher is a monster.But when Bobby runs into his teacher outside of school, he learns there is more to her than meets the eye.

    Everything seems loud and unfamiliar and scary. The little kitten wants a special place all his own. Can a new friend help him find one?The satisfying story of an adorable kitten's search for security and his discovery of a new friend is perfect for children who, like Mittens, are ready to take their first steps on a new journey: reading.Mittens is a My First I Can Read book, which means it’s perfect for shared reading with a child. "The beautiful physical immediacy of the new pet story will draw emergent readers," commented Booklist.

    One day on a walk through Paris (a "twelve little girls in two straight lines" kind of walk), Madeline slips and falls off a bridge right into the Seine. Everyone feared she would be dead, "But for a dog / That kept its head," saving her from a "watery grave." What choice do Madeline and the girls have but to take the heroic pooch home, feed her biscuits, milk, and beef, and name her Genevieve? Sadly, when Lord Cucuface gets wind of the new dog, he decrees that no dogs will be allowed in the "old house in Paris that was covered with vines," and kicks Genevieve out on the street. Madeline vows vengeance, and the girls scour Paris looking for the pup: "They went looking high / and low / And every place a dog might go. / In every place they called her name / But no one answered to the same." As we've come to expect from Bemelmans, all's well that ends well chez Clavel, and young readers will be tickled by this heartwarming, quirky dog story with a surprise finale. (Ages 4 to 8) --Karin Snelson

    The Shy Little Kitten, with illustrations by the renowned Gustaf Tenggren.