If only he could find a good resting place to hide from playful (and wide awake) Kitten!Opposites and hide-and-seek make this a fun story for nap time -- or anytime.

    . .If you want to see a whale, you have to keep your eyes on the sea, and wait . . .and wait . . . and wait . . .In this quiet and beautiful picture book by Julie Fogliano and Erin E. Stead, the team that created the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor book And Then It's Spring, a boy learns exactly what it takes to catch a glimpse of an elusive whale.

    He enjoys his solitude. He likes playing with his friends, who are puppets, stuffed animals, and other toys. With his rich imagination, Oliver’s day is never dull. There are bridges to cross, sharks to fight, and treasures to find! But maybe toys don’t always give a boy everything he needs. Maybe he needs another kind of companion. Will Oliver discover a way to be, well, different? When his tennis ball rolls across the lawn into the yard of the girl next door, he just might be surprised.

    Whether it's conducting an orchestra, painting a masterpiece, or slaying a dragon—give a child a stick and let imagination take over and the magic begin.

    When Pokko takes the drum deep into the forest it is so quiet, so very quiet that Pokko decides to play. And before she knows it she is joined by a band of animals —first the raccoon, then the rabbit, then the wolf—and soon the entire forest is following her. Will Pokko hear her father’s voice when he calls her home? Pokko and the Drum is a story about art, persistence, and a family of frogs living in a mushroom.

    When her great-great-aunt Rose (Rosie the Riveter) comes for a visit and mentions her one unfinished goal--to fly--Rosie sets to work building a contraption to make her aunt's dream come true. But when her contraption doesn't fl y but rather hovers for a moment and then crashes, Rosie deems the invention a failure. On the contrary, Aunt Rose inisists that Rosie's contraption was a raging success. You can only truly fail, she explains, if you quit.

    Everyone deserves a hug—and this book!

    A little girl gallivants through a county fair, searching for her furry friend. Readers will surely spot the friendly monster as well as twenty shapes, identified here by their proper names—trapezoids, ellipses, kites, and more—hidden among iconic fair attractions from the fun house to the Ferris wheel. Maybe the monster is judging the pies? Or perhaps he’s at the monster-truck rally? Youngsters will be so mesmerized by Steve Light’s masterful pen-and-ink illustrations, decorated with vivid splashes of color, they won’t even realize they’ve learned how to spot a nonagon while looking for a monster.

    They search for the right place, looking through the windows, wondering "What if...?" while making surprising discoveries along the way.

    Also, beware of ticklish toes, shirts with buttons, and hats that do not fit neatly between his horns! In this charming, second-person narrative, our little boy hero imparts his infinite knowledge of how to dress a dragon, a task that isn't quite as easy as it may seem. With helpful hints like, You may have to tickle-tackle him to the floor and give him belly kisses, and warnings like, Dragons do not like shirts. But they do like capes ! this story is not only delightfully entertaining, but extremely endearing. Author Thelma Lynne Godin and illustrator Eric Barclay come together perfectly to bring this fantasy to life!

    But then something good happens to each of them, turning a bad day into a good one.What makes a good day? What makes a bad day? And how can bad be transformed into good? This exploration of opposites and emotions was described as "a deceptively simple picture book, expertly tuned to the emotions and imaginations of young children" by ALA Booklist in a starred review.

    A small boy and his elephant play an absurd game of hide and seek - a brilliant debut from a Sebastian Walker Award-winning illustrator

    "My mother carries me through the quiet streets," the bunny explains. "Most of our neighbors are already home." The bunny can see their lights in the windows, and hear and smell what they might be doing: talking on the phone, pulling a pie out of the oven, having a party, saying goodbye. When they reach home, the father rabbit tucks the bunny into bed. But the bunny continues to wonder about the neighbors' activities. "Are the party guests saying goodnight? Is the person on the phone getting ready for bed?" And what of the footsteps that can be heard in the street as the bunny falls asleep? "Will she take the last train home?"This beautiful picture book captures the magical wonder a child feels at being outside in the night. Award-winning author and illustrator Akiko Miyakoshi's softly focused black-and-white illustrations with just a touch of neutral color have a dreamlike quality, just right for nodding off to sleep with. The book is intriguing in that it contains twice-told stories, once as they are observed and second as the bunny imagines them. This offers a perfect prompt for young children to create extensions of other stories they have read or heard. A deeper reading could encourage critical thinking by comparing the different pastimes of the neighbors or, ultimately, what it means to be home.

    But what if somebody’s taste in pets runs to the more mechanical kind? What about those who like cogs and gears more than feathers and fur? People who prefer the call of a train whistle to the squeal of a guinea pig? Or maybe dream of a smudge of soot on their cheek, not slobber? In this spectacularly illustrated picture book, kids who love locomotives (and what kid doesn’t?) will discover where trains live, what they like to eat, and the best train tricks around—everything it takes to lay the tracks for a long and happy friendship. All aboard!

    In this book with rhyming text, the dream train pulls into the station and all the different cars are loaded by the animal workers, each with the appropriate cargo.