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Papa's magical water-jug clock
Trejo, Jesus
Papa is working today so Jesus tags along to help him with planting, cutting grass, and trimming trees. The family business works on Saturdays too so Jesus is in charge of filling Papa's big water jug. The two work around the neighborhood with all the tools rattling in the work van, stopping to work in 14 yards. Does the water hold out for them even though Jesus splashes some water on his face and gives water to some animals. Even though Jesus panics when the water is gone by 10:30 am, Papa explains that Jesus is still part of the family business. At the end of the day, Papa says "Time and water are precious. We don't want to waste them".

Dancing hands: A story of friendship in filipino sign language
Que, Joanna//Marquez, Charria
The new neighbors do not use their voices to speak. Their hands move in a rhythm to express their thoughts and feelings. Mai teaches her friend to communicate using her "hands to dance". The girls share their dreams and their aspirations for careers. Sam and Mai become best friends.


Going fishing
McMillan, Bruce
A young boy from Iceland enjoys time with both of his grandfathers while fishing for two kinds of fish: Atlantic cod and Lumpfish. Photographs of the boats and fishing process bring the true joy of catching fish alive. The stamps and coins showing the two kinds of fish are emblematic of the Icelandic culture.

New old shoes
Blessing, Charlotte
A brand-new pair of shoes begin on the playful feet of an American boy then his shoes are donated and worn on the feet of African children. The shoes are worn and used in many different ways for play and work.

"L" is for library
Terry, Sonya
Children with a friendly tabby cat, a dog, and ducklings move through the library stacks from A-Z as they discover many things to do and see in a library. You can learn about the Caldecott award, the Dewey Decimal System, and URL Web address.

Fuddles
Vischer, Frans
Fuddles is not an ordinary house cat. His family pampers and spoils him but he lacks adventure. Even though he is not allowed to go outside, he finds a way to get laughed at, chased, and put in my difficult situations before he realizes that he really misses his family. In the deep darkness of the night, he hears his family calling him. What a relief!

The everything book
Fleming, Denise
From ABCs to 123s, children learn about the world around them. They are introduced to food and animals, along with colors and shapes, so that they can understand their environment.

Mel fell
Tabor, Corey R.
Mel leaves the nest with a sense of adventure and finds that the animals and birds and insects on the way down on his flight are all there when flying back up the tree. The descending flight takes him into the water for a kingfish which he carries back to the nest to feed his siblings.

Blue
Seeger, Laura Vaccaro
A boy and his dog go through their lives together and experience different things associated with the color blue. Whether they are playing with blue butterflies or picking blue blueberries together, they love spending time with each other. One day, the boy’s dog passes away and, with time, he gets a new puppy to share his life with.

A home in the barn
Brown, Margaret Wise
In the winter, it is too cold for the animals to be outside but the barn is warm. All the horses, cattle, mice, birds, and cats stay there together to keep away from the cold. Even though there are a lot of animals in the barn, they all get along and help to keep each other warm.

Love is
Adams, Diane
A little girl raises a duckling and loves it very much. One day, she realizes that it is time for her duckling to leave and join the other ducks outside. Even though she misses her pet, their love stays strong and she still gets to see her duck and its new family.

The sea maidens of Japan
Bell, Lili
Kiyomi's mother, Okaasan, is an ama diver who harvests shellfish from the deep ocean in Japan. As a young girl, Kiyomi practices with her mom to become an ama diver, but she is very afraid of the sea. Kiyomi gains the strength to overcome this fear and become a diver when she swims with the star turtle, an animal she helped to save when it was born.

We all play
Flett, Julie
Just as humans do, animals play and sleep too! Rabbits love to hide and hop while bears love to wiggle and wobble. As a result, all living things are connected and everyone maintains the responsibility to look out for each other.

Quiet in the garden
Aliki
A little boy enjoys going out into his garden. His garden has flowers, produce, and wildlife. The wildlife shows the little boy the importance of the food chain. The little boy enjoys a picnic with the wildlife, because he loves nature.

Our Gracie aunt
Woodson, Jaqueline
A brother and sister are taken into foster care with their Aunt Gracie. Aunt Gracie welcomes the kids with delicious treats and teaches them how to cook. The kids go to visit their mother and then they return to their Aunt Gracie.

The runaway wok
Compestine, Ying Chang
Ming lives in a poor family. He goes to the market to trade and receive food so he and his neighbors can share a Chinese new year feast. Instead of buying food, Ming chooses a magical wok. The wok rounds up the food and prized possessions of the rich to bring food to Ming's family and poor neighbors. Ming celebrates a wonderful new year, and he sells more woks to help other poor families.

Tales for very picky eaters
Schneider, Josh
James battles his father on what to eat. James tries the disgusting broccoli, the smelly lasagna, repulsive milk, lumpy oatmeal, and slimy eggs. As James' father suggests very creative alternatives to the food that James doesn't like, he settles for the food that was offered to him originally.

Saturday Sancocho
Torres, Leyla
Chicken Sancocho is a traditional family meal for Maria Lili and her grandmother. When there is a shortage of ingredients, Maria Lili is determined to complete the meal.

Harvest
Waldherr, Kris
A young girl anxiously awaits the harvest. She prepares for the harvest by painting and gardening. She stores the food in a variety of ways. She and her mom cook, bake, and preserve the food. A harvest moon completes the day.

The listening walk
Showers, Paul
A young girl and her dad love to take silent walks with each other and their old dog. The girl enjoys the silence and is constantly listening to all of the sounds she hears.

Big momma makes the world
Root, Phyllis
As each day goes by, Big Momma continues to make the world a better place with a little baby by her side. She is the boss of the world and never will mess around.

To market, to market
Miranda, Anne
A woman makes several efforts to go to the market to buy livestock. After complications arise from leaving the animals at home, the woman returns to the market to buy several vegetables in order to make herself and the livestock some vegetable soup for lunch. From home to market and back again, the woman uses delicious potatoes, celery, beets, cabbage and many more vegetables for their feast.

Beatrice's goat
McBrier, Page
Beatrice lives in Uganda and helps her mother care for her younger siblings. Money is scarce until Mugisa, a goat arrives. Mugisa provides milk, and the family is nourished by it. Mugisa's milk and babies provide enough money so Beatrice and her family can live a better life. Beatrice can afford her dream of attending school. This story has an afterwords by Hillary Rodhman Clinton.

My garden: Mi jardin
Emberley, Rebecca
Different objects and living things found in a garden are described in words and pictures: stones, dirt, worm; vegetables, squash, peas; and flowers, snail, lady bug and leaf. Words are shared in English and Spanish.

Vanilla ice cream
Graham, Bob
A young curious sparrow escapes from the truck stop and makes his way through an eventful journey to find food. The adventure leads him to Edie Irvine and his grandparents, including the moment of Edie's first taste of vanilla ice cream!

Alejandro's gift
Albert, Richard
A lonely man plants a garden full of vegetables in the middle of the desert. A wide array of desert wildlife finds their way to his garden and watering hole. He wants to be friends with the animals and help them.

Jack & Jim
Crowther, Kitty
An adventurous blackbird wants to venture out, beyond his home in the forest, to explore the beach. He meets a white seagull and the two quickly become friends. However, their outward appearances quickly cause some adverse reactions from others in town. These friends stand fast to their friendship and overcome adversity. Eventually, the village of seagulls accepts Jack for his gift of stories.

On Noah's ark
Brett, Jan
In preparation of the rains, Noah's granddaughter helps her family read the Ark and animals. Two-by-two the beautiful animals crowd into the Ark and she keeps herself busy making the animals comfortable hoping for the rains to stop.

Muriel's red sweater
Dokas, Dara
Muriel Magee's party invitations are very late because her birthday is today! She runs around town handing out invitations to her friends. What she doesn't realize is that her sweater unravels with each person she invites. By the time she gets home, she sees that her sweater is all gone, but she is in for a surprise! Her friends are all there to wish her a happy birthday, and they give her a present. When she opens it she realizes it's just what she needed - a new sweater!

Colors
Jeunesse, Gallimard // Bourgoing, Pascale de
What happens when different colors from the rainbow mix with other colors? New colors are made. Explore lots of colors through engaging questions in real world connections.

Angelo
Macauley, David
A man is repairing when he comes upon an injured pigeon. He nurses the pigeon back to health and a friendship fast emerges. The pigeon helps the man fulfill his lifelong dream and is surprised to find an addition to the building.

Little polar bear
De Beer, Hans
A baby polar bear wakes up to find himself in a world surrounded by color. He makes many friends, but becomes homesick. His friends help him develop a plan to get back home where everything is white.

Guji Guji
Chen Chih-Yuan
A rolling egg finds a home in a duck nest. It wasn't until three crocodiles find Guji Guji that she may not be a duck. The crocodiles ask Guji Guji to trap his family for them to eat. Instead Guji Guji, with the help of his duck family, drop heavy rocks into the crocodiles open mouths.

Armadilly chili
Ketteman, Helen
Billie decides to make armadilly chili. She asks her friends to help her but they are all busy and do not want to help. After Billie makes the chili, all of her friends knock on her door. Billie will not let them eat because they wouldn't help. She soon realizes her chili is missing something: her friends!

Click, clack, splish, splash
Cronin, Doreen
While a farmer is sleeping, a long sequence of farm animals are busy. Join in the fun with 4 chickens, 5 cows, 6 goats, 7 pigs, 8 sheep, and 9 mice then repeat it backwards. Enjoy the 1 to 10 counting rhyme as the farm animals take you on the journey to release some fish at the end.

Zoopa: An animal alphabet
Marino, Gianna
Check out this alphabet book surrounding a bowl of soup. Each page brings two more letters to the soup bowl accompanied by animals beginning with those letters. In the end, the bowl is full of letters and the table is covered in animals.

Brown bear, brown bear: What do you see?
Martin, Bill
Through a repeating phrase what do you see?, animals of different colors fulfill the intellectual and social dimensions of health. In the end, a mother looks at a variety of children.

For sure! For sure!
Andersen, Hans Christian
Did you know that chickens gossip too? Come read about one chick that plucks out her feathers, supposedly to look good and impress her rooster. After one of her feathers is plucker, an owl sees her actions and spreads the word. The story gets turned around and exaggerated especially when the newspaper prints it.

One small place in a tree
Brenner, Barbara
A bear scratches the bark of a tree; beetles form small openings; a woodpecker eats the beetles; bacteria takes over the tree and a small hole is formed. Although the tree is dying, this small hole is still a home for many animals. Both living and dying trees are important as shelter and home to living organisms.

The shaking bag
Battle-Lavert, Gwendolyn
Though Miss Annie Mae doesn't always have much food for herself or her dog Effie Lucille, she faithfully feeds the birds in the lawn. One day a stranger comes to visit. He shakes many special surprises for her out of the old seed bag to reward her for all her generosity.

The remembering stone
Russell, Barbara Timberlake
As Ana holds the speckled lava stone (the remembering stone) that her mother has given her, she falls asleep and dreams of being able to fly like the blackbirds in their garden to her mother's homeland of Costa Rica to see their family. She awakens in the morning and joins her mother as they greet the blackbirds in their garden. Ana can almost feel herself lifting off the ground as they take flight.

How groundhog's garden grew
Cherry, Lynne
Little Groundhog is hungry. His friend Squirrel reminds him that it would not be nice to eat from someone else's garden, so he offers to teach Groundhog how to grow food in his own garden. Groundhog learns that cooperation with the birds and insects around him will help meet their needs and help his garden to grow. After planting, tending, and harvesting his garden, Groundhog has a feast with his friends.

The great fuzz frenzy
Stevens, Janet & Grummel, Susan Stevens
When a dog drops a tennis ball into a Prairie Dog hold, it travels down, down, down to their home. Once they've overcome their fear, the Prairie Dogs begin to collect the fuzz from the ball to adorn themselves. When word of this gets out, more prairie dogs come in search of fuzz, and a fight begins. The fight is ended by the largest of the Prairie Dogs, Big Bark, as he takes all of the fuzz to adorn himself. Just as the prairie dogs are about to get mad at Big Bark, Eagle swoops down and picks him up by the fuzz to carry him off. Big Bark then uses his loud bark to scare the eagle and protect the other prairie dogs.

Hip, hug, hooray!
Tangvald, Christine
Do you know how many types of hugs there are? Look and learn how hugs are imporatant everywhere and everyday.

Three days on a river in a red canoe
Williams, Vera B
A boy and his brother Sam take a canoe trip with their mother and aunt and engage in a variety of adventurous activities along the way.

Oh say can you say?
Seuss, Dr.
Oh say can you say is filled with tongue twisters to make the reading fun and challenging. The story features pages of rhymes ranging from animals to people.

Best best colors
Hoffman, Eric
Nate finds it difficult to decide which color is his favorite. Every time he sees a new color, he likes it better than the other. He learns that he can have more than one favorite color.

Trudi & Pia
Hegi, Ursula
Trudi dreams of being tall and feels there are no other dwarfs like her until she meets Pia who teaches her to accept the way she is and that she is not alone. Pia talks about when other drawfs from around the world in Russia, Italy, France and Portugal, Trudi learns to feel normal and beautiful.

Let's talk about needing attention
Berry, Joy
A girl names Casey tries all the wrong ways to get attention from her Mom and Dad. Eventually she finds solutions for achieving attention the right way and learns how to help others as well.