Book Finder

Ramona is ready for the challenges of a new school — without her older sister. It’s a year of change for the Quimby family and if everyone else can adjust, so can Ramona. The normal challenges of family life come alive here with verve and humor.

Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison uses more than 50 archival photographs, many of children, to take readers on a journey to remember “the narrow path, the open door and the wide road” to integration of American schools before and after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board decision in 1954.

Where do frogs sit? On toadstools. What happened when the frog left his car in a no parking zone? It was toaded, of course! Jewel-toned, semi-abstract paintings illustrated this pun-filled book all about amphibious friends.

Charlotte Parkhurst could do almost anything with horses. Once out of the orphanage, Charlotte masquerades successfully as a man named Charley, and in spite of huge obstacles is able to drive a stagecoach and work with horses. Based on a real person, Charley also became the first woman to cast her vote in the state of California.

A girl discovers things that are round, square, and rectangular in her urban neighborhood. A gently rhyming text and crisply lined illustrations reveal many things that are universally recognizable as well as others that come from the child’s Chinese background.

Set in the 1800s, a widowed farmer advertises for a wife and mother for his two children. A tall, plain woman answers the ad; Sarah leaves her Maine home and the sea for the Plains as she grows to love Caleb and Anna. An elegantly simple telling.

This boy’s curse begins when his teacher suggests that the “poetry of science” can be heard everywhere. From Moore to Frost, familiar poems are parodied and turned into science verse. Again art and illustration are inseparable as are the laughs in this offbeat look at science.

The Great Sphinx has amazed and intrigued since it was first created some 4,500 years ago. Those secrets that have been revealed, and others that remain cloaked in mystery, are the subject of this well written, handsomely illustrated, and thoroughly engaging book.

As advertisements go up announcing the arrival of the circus, children imagine the different acts on the sidewalks of their town. It’s a nearly wordless but richly imagined adventure.

From the architects’ plans to the tower’s completion, a New York skyscraper is created step by step. Clear text is presented on several layers of detail and is coupled with crisp, informative, full color photographs to document this fascinating process.

The motto of South Orange River (S.O.R.) Middle School’s sports program is “everybody plays, everybody wins.” But all that changes when a group of 11 unenthusiastic seventh graders are forced to form a soccer team. Learn the secret of the S.O.R. Losers’ success in this original sports story.

The I Spy books ask readers to use their sharp eyes to solve the rhyming riddles and identify the hidden objects on each page. The masterfully composed, intricate and crisp photographs are filled with readily recognizable images, just hidden out of sight.

It’s summer vacation for Grace and her neighborhood friends, just the time for the fun to begin! Grace remains the imaginative, energetic girl first introduced in Amazing Grace (1991) as she involves all the kids in dramatic play. From helping an isolated older woman to creating a circus, Grace and her chums spend a delightful summer vacation close to home.

What Susan does everyday is revealed in a simple, rhyming text and light-lined, colored pencil illustrations. What Susan does and how she behaves is what all children do but she does it using a wheelchair, revealed — without sentimentality — in the final spread.

Shanti lives in the mountains of Sri Lanka with her mother, Amma, who works hard every day picking tea leaves. Before walking to school one day, Shanti asks her mother for her wishes. “I wish you good luck, and may you be surprised by what you learn,” says Amma.

Learning how to read isn’t easy for Trisha. But with the help and support of a wise new teacher, she begins to blossom. Told with warmth and sensitivity, and illustrated in Polacco’s signature style, the story of a girl overcoming dyslexia is based on the author’s own experience.

A brief history of classical ballet opens this handsome, richly told collection of seven stories from ballets. Each story is introduced with information on the production and time period in which the ballet was first performed.

This cheerful picture book presents a day in the life of a bird who was an elephant long ago and has just returned to its small Hindu village in India.

How Theodore Geisel, a dreamer and doodler from Springfield, Massachusetts, came to be Dr. Seuss, is reveled through a concise text and selected early work by the artist. This book provides a rare glimpse into the personal life of the innovative children’s book author and illustrator.