This is a cute story told from the perspective of Spunky, the Bates' dog. He is a well-intentioned dog who loves his family and tries hard to be understood. He understands Human but they don't understand Dog, which leads to some misunderstandings, especially when the family decides to adopt a cat, Fiona, because they think that Spunky wants a friend. This story takes you through Spunky's adventures, from trying to learn more about Ralph through his socks to rescuing Fiona from the freezer!

This informational text takes the reader through a close-up look at coral reefs, explaining their formation, components and the need to help protect them. Through the use of colorful illustrations, numerous sea creatures are identified and oceanic terms explained.

This book has two different stories in it, both about Owly. In the first story, The Way Home, Owly is lonely and finds a little, lost worm. Owly helps worm find his way home, and makes a new friend in the process. The next story, The Bittersweet Summer, shows Owly and Wormy making friends with a hummingbird. They discover a lot of new information about hummingbirds while reading a bird book, including information on what they eat and about migration.

This is an imaginative alphabet book where zebra is putting together the alphabet with all of the items/animals that he wants for his pages. Moose is impatient and starts popping into the pictures at letter D, and zebra tells him he's on the wrong page. Moose keeps interrupting nearly every page until it comes to letter M, where he discovers zebra has chosen to go with the mouse. Moose is crushed! He's angry and doesn't handle this rejection well, destroying N through U. By V, moose is crying and on Z, zebra allows him to share the page, saying "Z is for Zebra's friend, Moose."

This story is a silly tale about a wolf who encounters a chicken while on a walk in town. He tricks her into going back to his house, and working together to make dinner. When he tells her a key ingredient in the soup is missing, the apparently naive chicken surprises the reader by turning the tables on the wolf and shoving him into the pot. The chicks, who all along kept giving warnings, saying things like, "That is really, really not a good idea," surprise you at the end by saying, "Well, we DID try to warn him."

In this story, Splat the Cat's friend, Seymour (the mouse) is sick (with what looks like the chicken pox). Splat wants to cheer Seymour up and gives him a book to thank him for all he has done for Splat. It takes the reader through a series of their adventures, with Splat thanking Seymour on each page.

This is a fun introduction to symmetry. Through numerous and colorful illustrations, Leedy shows the various types of symmetry and where you can find examples of symmetry in your world.

This is a sweet story of Rocket and his teacher, the little yellow bird. Rocket loved to read but now he was interested in writing also. The story follows Rocket on his adventure of looking for new words, discovering his surroundings, and working through writer's block.

This book shares the history of the Puerto Rican Parrot in a beautifully illustrated, vertical layout. This book includes information about the history of Puerto Rico and the way various events have impacted the indigenous parrot population. The afterword contains additional information about the Puerto Rican Parrots and how their survival has been affected by changes in the Puerto Rican population, land development, introduction of new species to the island and natural disasters. It also tells of the efforts that have been made since 1968 to help bring the parrot population back from 24 parrots (their 1967 population in Puerto Rico).

This cute story is the retelling of the traditional tale, The Little Red Hen. In this version, Matthews tells the story with a modern twist, using activities that today's kids can relate to. After being told "no" repeatedly by her friends, the little red hen lays an egg beneath her tree. When her chick hatches out and the other animals' babies want to come play in the shade of the tree, the little red hen has to rethink her initial "no" response, when the little red chick tells her that she's being mean.

Mr. Wuffles keeps ignoring all of his new toys, until he happens upon a "toy" that he is suddenly intrigued by. As it turns out, the toy is actually a tiny spaceship, inhabited by aliens. As Mr. Wuffles bats it around, David Wiesner takes us inside the spaceship to see the havoc this wreaks on the aliens. Following the destruction to their ship, they are forced into Mr. Wuffles' world, in the hopes of repairing their spaceship. This story follows the aliens as they befriend a group of ants and other insects, then work together to fix the ship, thwart the cat and make their escape.

This retelling of a familiar tale shares the story through wonderful illustrations created through cut and torn paper, including paper from the region the story originated from. In this story, crocodile wants to eat monkey's heart and tries to trick monkey repeatedly but is consistently outwitted by monkey.

This touching story shares the way a little girl, Suhaila, comes to know her grandmother, who has already passed away. After asking her mom about her Grandma Annie, Suhaila is visited that night by her grandmother, descending on a golden ladder and taking the child to the moon. The adventure helps Suhaila understand her grandmother and the world, as they work together to help and heal people around the world. This story has a wonderful author's note that shares her personal story and motivation for writing this story.

This book is a poetry anthology by Jack Prelutsky, that is full of over 100 funny poems and illustrations that kids will love. Many of the poems in this book are about animals, both real and make-believe. Others are about silly subjects that kids can relate to, like having to eat vegetables.

This story takes a boy on a walk down memory lane, depicting his great-grandfather's life in the topiaries. Walking through the garden, the garden represents various events in the great-grandfather's life, including his childhood (having chicken pox), adolescence and adult-hood. It shows how, as he aged, he began to forget things, but that the garden held his memories for him.

This is a really imaginative story that shares a new perspective about what mysteries the ocean holds. While spending time on a beach, looking closely at crabs, a boy is suddenly swept off his feet by a wave...a wave that also brings with it an underwater camera. The boy runs the camera to a one-hour photo shop and has the film developed. The images depict a surprising view of life under the sea, including robotic fish, an octopus' living room, puffer fish hot air balloons, small cities on sea turtle backs, aliens visiting the depths of the ocean and more. Included is a photo of a little girl, holding a picture that also shows another child holding a picture. Looking closely at the pictures within the picture, the boy is transported to a time long-gone. Inspired by this, he puts a new roll of film in the camera, takes a picture of himself holding the photo of the girl and tosses the camera back into the ocean.

This is a touching story about a little girl whose father moves them from Boston to Nebraska, after the death of her mother. Lost and alone in her new world, this story takes the reader through Elsie's process of coming to love her new home.

This is a cute alphabet book that shows a group of farm animals working together to rescue the farmer's pet fish and release them back into the wild. The story, created in the format of a nearly-complete (A-W) alphabet book, features the beloved characters from Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type. At the end of the story, it transitions to a type of counting book, as they release the fish (10, 9, 8...) before we catch a glimpse of the surprised farmer looking into his empty fish tank.

This clever story takes you on an adventure with three children who discover the magic within a bag of chalk left on a dinosaur spring toy at the playground on a rainy day. It begins when the kids spot the bag of chalk and one of the girls draws a sun...and the sun begins to appear, as if by magic. Next, the other girl draws butterflies, and again, they magically come to life. The boy, with a curious and mischievous look on his face, looks at the dinosaur toy and begins to draw...waiting to see what happens. The dinosaur comes to life and the children run and hide in the tunnels of the play structure. The boy has another idea and quickly draws a rain cloud, and as the rain begins to come down, it washes away the other drawings and the dinosaur begins to wash away, too.

This story is an illustrated retelling of Chief Seattle's words to government officials in Washington, D.C. in the mid-1850's when they wanted to buy the land from the native american people. His words sought to convey the importance of the earth and the value of every living thing to their culture.

This common tale of the ant and the grasshopper brings with it a surprise ending that endears the reader to the ant. All summer and fall, ant is saving and gathering food for the winter. While he works and counts his food stores each day, grasshopper begins to play his fiddle just outside ant's door. Ant is frustrated by grasshopper's lack of preparation for winter, and when winter comes, and grasshopper is cold and hungry, ant turns him away, reminding him that he shouldn't have been playing. As the winter wears on, ant is confronted by a nightmare that brings about a change of heart and a new-found appreciation for grasshopper.

Stephen Johnson has created a unique alphabet book that shows the way the alphabet can be found in urban settings. Each of the pages shows something you would commonly find in a downtown area, and depicts a letter of the alphabet. This story helps readers to experience their surroundings in a whole new way!

This is a sweet book that shows the steps Grandma takes to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. As she adds each ingredient, the cat and dog have a conversation about where each item came from. They take the reader to that country or to a factory, sharing the process that went into the ingredient being available for everyone to use. It even includes a recipe at the end of the story, as well as a friendly reminder that chocolate isn't safe for our pets.

This is a sweet story about trying to fit in and learning to appreciate your own value. Exclamation point wants to be just like the periods and feels like he doesn't belong...until he meets the question mark, who asks him so many questions that he becomes frustrated and discovers his own unique abilities as an exclamation mark!