Hey, Al


Arthur Yorinks - 1986
    They eat together, they work together, they do everything together. So what's the problem?Their room is crowded and cramped; their life is an endless struggle. Al and Eddie are practically at each others throats when a large and mysterious bird offers them a new life in paradise. After some debate, they decide to accept.Transported to a gorgeous island in the sky, Al and Eddie are soon living a life of ease and luxury. But they come to find that the grass can be a little too green on the other side. After a dramatic, nearly tragic escape from their paradise prison, both man and dog agree: there really is no place like home. Hey, Al is the winner of the 1987 Caldecott Medal.

Hush! A Thai Lullaby


Minfong Ho - 1996
    A lullaby which asks animals such as a lizard, monkey, and water-buffalo to be quiet and not disturb the sleeping baby.

The Paperboy


Dav Pilkey - 1996
    Human and canine both struggle to rouse themselves, eat breakfast from bowls, and have an intimate knowledge of their route. Pilkey paints their shared experiences with a graceful economy of language.

Harlem


Walter Dean Myers - 1997
    Words and pictures together connect readers -of all ages - to the spirit of Harlem in its music, art, literature, and everyday life, and to how it has helped shape us as a people.

Wee Gillis


Munro Leaf - 1938
    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 are eager for him to settle down and adopt their ways. In the Lowlands, he is taught to herd cattle, learning how to call them to him in even the heaviest of evening fogs. In the rocky Highlands, he stalks stags from outcrop to outcrop, holding his breath so as not to make a sound. Wee Gillis is a quick study, and he soon picks up what his elders can teach him. And yet he is unprepared when the day comes for him to decide, once and for all, whether it will be the Lowlands or the Highlands that he will call his home.Robert Lawson and Munro Leaf's classic picture book is a tribute to the powers of the imagination and a triumph of the storyteller's and illustrator's art.

More More More Said the Baby


Vera B. Williams - 1990
    Williams' Caldecott Honor Book cry out for more more more! The stars of three little love stories - toddlers with nicknames like "Little Pumpkin" - run giggling until they are scooped up by adoring adults to be swung around, kissed, and finally tucked into bed. Quirky watercolor drawings and colorful text feature multiethnic families, and young readers will rejoice in seeing the center of all the attention: the wiggly, chubby, irresistible toddlers.

Tibet: Through the Red Box


Peter Sís - 1998
    We weren't allowed to touch the box. The stories I heard as a little boy faded to a hazy dream, and my drawings from that time make no sense. I cannot decipher them. It was not until I myself had gone far, far away and received the message from my father that I became interested in the red box again . . .In New York, Peter Sis receives a letter from his father. "The Red Box is now yours," it says. The brief note worries him and pulls him back to Prague, where the contents of the red box explain the mystery of his father's long absence during the 1950s.Czechoslovakia was behind the iron curtain; Vladimir Sis, a documentary filmmaker of considerable talent, was drafted into the army and sent to China to teach filmmaking. He left his wife, daughter, and young son, Peter, thinking he would be home for Christmas. Two Christmases would pass before he was heard from again: Vladimir Sis was lost in Tibet. He met with the Dalai Lama; he witnessed China's invasion of Tibet. When he returned to Prague, he dared not talk to his friends about all he had seen and experienced. But over and over again he told Peter about his Tibetan adventures. Weaving their two stories together - that of the father lost in Tibet and that of the small boy in Prague, lost without his father - Sis draws from his father's diary and from his own recollections of his father's incredible tales to reach a spiritual homecoming between father and son. With his sublime pictures, inspired by Tibetan Buddhist art and linking history to memory, Peter Sis gives us an extraordinary book - a work of singular artistry and rare imagination. This title has Common Core connections.Tibet Through the Red Box is a 1999 Caldecott Honor Book and the winner of the 1999 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Special Citation.

Frog Went a-Courtin'


John Langstaff - 1955
    . . . Illustrator Feodor Rojankovsky somehow manages to combine quaintness with sophistication and his doughty frog, the coy mouse . . . and others make charming company.”--The New York Times Book Review

Working Cotton


Sherley Anne Williams - 1992
    “With its restrained poetic text and impressionist paintings, this is a picture book for older readers, too.”--Booklist

In the Small, Small Pond


Denise Fleming - 1993
    A child explores the wonders of the natural world in this rhyming, beautiful bright colored picture storybook about the lives of small animals and insects living around a freshwater pond.

Time of Wonder


Robert McCloskey - 1957
    . . So begins this classic story of one summer on a Maine island from the author of One Morning in Maine and Blueberries for Sal. The spell of rain, the gulls and a foggy morning, the excitement of sailing, the quiet of the night, the sudden terror of a hurricane, and, in the end, the peace of the island as the family packs up to leave are shown in poetic language and vibrant, evocative pictures.

Mirandy and Brother Wind


Patricia C. McKissack - 1988
    And who is the best partner? The wind, of course!   Grandmama Beasley says, “Can’t nobody put shackles on Brother Wind, chile. He be special. He be free.” With neighbors up and down Ridgetop suggesting all manner of strategies, and friend Ezel laughing at each foiled one, Mirandy grows ever more determined: she’ll get hold of that Brother Wind yet!             Patricia C. McKissack’s thoroughly engaging tale dances with spirit and rollicking good humor. Complemented by Jerry Pinkney’s rich, eye-catching watercolors of the rural South, here’s one of those rare, rewarding picture books that is sure to be read and enjoyed again and again.

What Do You Say, Dear? A Book of Manners for All Occasions


Sesyle Joslin - 1958
    What do you say when:- you bump into a crocodile on a crowded city street?- a nice gentleman introduces you to a baby elephant?- the Queen feeds you so much spaghetti that you don't fit in your chair anymore?This is the funniest book of manners you'll ever read!

Owen


Kevin Henkes - 1993
    Everywhere Owen goes, his blanket goes with him. Upstairs, downstairs, in-between. Inside, outside, upside down. Everywhere! Owen’s parents are in despair—soon Owen will begin school, and he can’t take Fuzzy with him then. Whatever can be done?This Caldecott Honor Book will provide reassurance and laughs whether shared at home or during circle time. Every child uses some sort of security object, whether it’s a toy, a thumb, or a binky. For those not yet ready to let go and for those who have moved on, here’s a story about making compromises that speaks to us all.Everyone who’s ever had a favorite blanket will know exactly how Owen feels!

Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888


Ernest Lawrence Thayer - 1888
    Its author would rather have seen it forgotten. Instead, Ernest Thayer's poem has taken a well-deserved place as an enduring icon of Americana. Christopher Bing's magnificent version of this immortal ballad of the flailing 19th-century baseball star is rendered as though it had been newly discovered in a hundred-year-old scrapbook. Bing seamlessly weaves real and trompe l'oeil reproductions of artifacts-period baseball cards, tickets, advertisements, and a host of other memorabilia into the narrative to present a rich and multifaceted panorama of a bygone era. A book to be pored over by children, treasured by aficionados of the sport-and given as a gift to all ages: a tragi-comic celebration of heroism and of a golden era of sport.