Children and Families

This is a touching story that starts with a day that is not like the others. Eleven-year-old Sophie Winslow is best friends with her neighbor, eighty-eight-year-old Sophie Gershowitz. Eleven-year-old Sophie is an unusual child - she's an old soul and hypochondriac. She loves using traditional library reference tools such as looking up medical ailments in the Merck Manual and memorizing quotes from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.

This is the first book in "The Norendy Tales" series by Kate DiCamillo. The Puppets of Spelhorst is a wonderful story filled with hope, adventure, wisdom, courage and love. Five puppets: a king, an owl, a boy, a girl, and a wolf are "in a story together" that starts with their purchase from a toy shop by an old, broken-hearted sea captain named Spelhorst.

This picture book is perfect for sharing during farmers' market season, especially when pumpkins are ripe. A boy and his Papa head to the last remaining stall at the farmers' market with their pumpkins, peppers, plums and eggs. A year ago, there were two vendors. The year before there were five. The community still needs the fresh produce and the boy and his Papa head to the market every Saturday while Granny makes baskets from sweetgrass on the front porch of the farmhouse. Familiar, friendly faces start lining up and their orders are ready before they even have to ask.

This quiet picture book by the author of the rollicking Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type prepares young readers for bedtime in a calm and comforting way. Baby sloth and his mama live high up in the tree. They sleep in the light of the moon holding each other tight. 

Louise and Milo find a stick at their favorite park. They play fetch with Stick over and over again. Milo doesn't understand why Louise loves throwing Stick so much, but he is determined to bring it back each and every time. Then Louise pretends to throw Stick and Milo races off only to discover that he's gone too far astray while searching. He doesn't realize that Stick was never thrown! Not only is Stick "lost" to Milo, but Milo is lost as well. 

Perla's two superpowers are making people love her and roaring like a lion. She is a little, scruffy dog, but her powers are mighty. She makes the Rico family fall in love with her at the shelter even though they were hoping to find a guard dog. Then she learns to roar like a lion to demonstrate what an excellent guardian she will make. 

Wanda's big brother is the bravest kid she knows, but when her turn comes to match his feats of bravery, things are a lot harder than she thought. The monkey bars don't agree with her, the giant hill he biked down is a LOT bigger now, and forget about going to camp. 

When Wanda's friends cajole her to join them on the Coaster of Doom, she is relieved that she is still too short to ride. She wants to be brave though, so she spends all year practicing. She bikes and sleds down hills, tiptoes into the dark basement, and even tries out a climbing wall with a look of determination. 

A mother and child are at the zoo. As they look at the animals, she says things like, "If you crawled like a gecko up the wall, I would still love you best of all." Each animal is a new opportunity for the caregiver to express her love. Repetition and rhyme would make this a lovely bed time story. One that is reminiscent of The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown.

Follow the hush and magic In the Night Garden by Carin Berger. Blue, green, and black illustrations invite us in with the glow of fireflies and a sprinkling of stars. A quiet cat walks through each page and “tiptoes across the roof”. We experience the sights and sounds of the garden through the seasons. A swirling of wind blowing, bullfrog melodies, murmurings of a stream, and calls from an “occasional hoot owl.” The book feels both dreamy and earthy – filled with all sorts of natural plant and animal life.

Let’s talk pockets, shall we? Is there anything worse than “rotten pockets”? The fake ones, the tiny ones, the missing all together ones? Pockets have a long and checkered history in dresses and skirts. It was understood that trousers needed decent, sizable serviceable pockets. But dresses? Why on earth would pockets be needed in dresses. Besides, it might be possible for the wearer to squirrel pro women’s voting tracts in pockets and sow “sedition”. When dress silhouettes shifted from wide to narrow in the early 1900s, the loss of pockets was felt universally.