Awards: ALA Notable Children’s Book, New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year, Golden Kite Award winner, California Young Reader Medal winner, Booklist Editors’ Choice

    When she arrives at a strange house in the wintry woods, a peek in the window reveals that the footprints Kikko had been following did not belong to her father at all, but to a bear in a long coat and hat! Alice in Wonderland meets Little Red Riding Hood in this charmed tale.

    When a human family goes camping every year, woodland creatures move into their house for a week of relaxing in the great indoors, where they enjoy dance parties, the wonders of refrigeration, and good cell phone reception.

    Jack the cat is building the perfect nest. It' s bound to attract the perfect chicken, who will lay the perfect egg, which will make the perfect omelet. And sure enough, a chicken shows up ( Caramba ), but so do a duck ( Sacre bleu ) and a goose ( Great balls of fire ). Feathers get ruffled -- and Jack gets much more than breakfast -- in a funny tale rich in detail with a sweet final twist.

    until, at last, he falls asleep.

    . . but not quite. Follow a pair of birds on a snowflake-filled journey though a gorgeous winter landscape to explore how everything, everywhere is wonderfully unique--from branches and leaves to forests and trees to friends and loved ones.

    Kadir Nelson, acclaimed author of Baby Bear and winner of the Caldecott Honor and the Coretta Scott King Author and Illustrator Awards, presents a resonant, gently humorous story about the power of even the smallest acts and the rewards of compassion and generosity.With spare text and breathtaking oil paintings, If You Plant a Seed demonstrates not only the process of planting and growing for young children but also how a seed of kindness can bear sweet fruit.

    "Mmm," she says. "I'm going to gobble that up!" So she shakes the tree a little to the right, and she shakes the tree a little to the left. But it isn't the nut that falls from the tree, it's Fox, who thinks that Mouse looks pretty tasty! Soon a warthog and then a bear come along with similar ideas. Little readers will enjoy the just-made-it escapes (and be happy to get in on the shaking action), only to laugh out loud when their expectations are foiled at the end.

    What will he do when his greatest fear is realized? Will vines sprout out his ears? Will his skin turn pink? This crocodile has a wild imagination that kids will love. With bold color and beautiful sense of design, Greg Pizzoli's picture book debut takes this familiar childhood worry and gives us a true gem in the vein of I Want My Hat Back and Not a Box.

    "That's very odd," says Mr. Wimbledon each time, but when he returns from checking on the sounds, he's always reassuring: "It's only Stanley; he's fixing the oil tank." "It's only Stanley; he's clearing the bathtub drain."But what Stanley the dog is actually doing while his oblivious family goes back to bed is deliciously absurd: he's turning the house into a rocket ship to zoom himself and his family to another planet for an alien encounter. This is a perfect rhyming read-aloud for fans of irreverent tales like Click Clack Moo and I Want My Hat Back.

    Two fuzzy creatures can't agree on who is small and who is big, until a couple of surprise guests show up, settling it once and for all!The simple text of Anna Kang and bold illustrations of New Yorker cartoonist Christopher Weyant tell an original and very funny story about size -- it all depends on who's standing next to you.

    Bunny loves to sit outside the library with the kids and listen to summer story time. But when the weather gets cold and everyone moves inside, his daily dose of joy is gone. Desperate, Bunny refuses to miss out on any more reading time and devises a plan to sneak into the library at night . . . through the library's book drop! What follows is an adorable caper that brings an inquisitive, fuzzy bunny and his woodland pals up close and personal with the books they have grown to love. A warm celebration of the power of books, Bunny's Book Club is sure to bring knowing smiles to any child, parent, teacher, bookseller, and librarian who understands the one-of-a-kind magic of reading.

    Joe instructs his buddies to be as quiet as possible. They tiptoe--as well as they can on their hooves, claws, and furry feet--through a field, across a fallen log leading over a stream, through the woods, and up a hill. When they arrive at Joe's, he shows them something very special. It's his brand-new baby bear cubs, fast asleep! Tiptoe Joe is a great pick for parents who want to acclimate a child to a new baby brother or sister, and perfect for bedtime or story hour. Charming full-color illustrations by Laura Rankin bring Tiptoe Joe and the rest of the animals to life.

    Bear grumbles, "Which one of you made that awful AAA-OOO?" Then Moose, Duck, and other animals hear it, too, and they're all afraid. Could it be a monster making that terrible noise?

    And as it turns out, the boy is quickly approaching a surprise ending of his own! Maybe he should have listened to the animals after all. . . . This silly, timeless picturebook with a clever meta twist introduces debut author Minh L 's witty text and Isabel Roxas's eye-catching illustrations.