Grade: 3

This book is packed with information about how common household items really work, but its real treasure is the imaginative explanations that the children in the story concoct before being told the truth.

Orphan Urchin never intended to be a swashbuckling squirrel. Abandoned at birth on a Mistmantle beach, this mild-mannered acorn hunter was raised by the island’s squirrels, otters, and moles. He gains entrance into the royal court, thanks to the support of his hero, the dashing Captain Crispin. But something is wrong in the peaceful kingdom of Mismantle. Under the influence of the squirrel captain Husk, the King is enforcing severe measures against his people. Crispin himself is falsely accused of a horrific murder and banished. Can little Urchin, a mere smidgen squirrel, defend his master and his people?

“Is someone teasing you? If so, then in Spanish they are ‘pulling your hair,’ and in English they are ‘pulling your leg.’” Use these 12 Spanish and English idioms to compare figures of speech.

This is another story of perseverance. Virgie begs to go to school with her older brothers. But it’s a seven-mile walk, and her siblings stay over at school all week, only coming home for the weekends. Virgie’s parents don’t think a young girl should make such a long trip and be away from home for so long. But Virgie remains determined and ends up getting the education she craves. Inspired by the stories of her grandfather’s family, Howard captures a girl’s passion to learn in the post-Civil War South.

In the tradition of his best-selling alphabet book, Animalia, author and illustrator GraemeBase takes young readers on an exhilarating journey of discovery with an ingenious fusion of counting book, puzzle book, storybook, and art book. From the plains of Africa and the jungles of the Amazon to the woodlands of North America and the deserts of outback Australia, the animals come together to drink from the water hole. But their water supply is diminishing. What’s going on? Each sumptuous landscape illustration conceals hidden animal pictures for readers to find as they count the animals that visit the water hole and try to solve the mystery: will the animals come back or is their water source gone forever?

Wesley, who has no friends or interest in sports, plants a special seed in his backyard to create a unique summer project–his own civilization. He uses the plants that grow to make new foods and clothes, and, before long, he’s even making insect repellent and musical instruments. Wesley also devises his own number system and language, and his once scornful schoolmates now clamor to join him in Weslandia.

Zeesie sees a mitzvah (a good deed) on Delancey Street when her neighborhood holds a “package party” to auction their finest homemade Jewish dishes — kugel, tsimmes, and others. The money they raise brings Jewish emigrants to America. But when Zeesie peeks into a special “money room” she discovers that it isn’t filled with piles of money and treasures. People go in this room to leave spare shekels if they have them and take a bit of money when they need it. This book (which includes a Yiddish glossary) teaches kids that people can have a good time while doing good things.

In this Byrd Baylor prose-poem classic, Indian children in the Southwest make a game of collecting pieces of ancient pottery and trying to fit the pieces together. Their parents remind them to treat the clay with respect because “every piece of clay is a piece of someone’s life” and every piece “has its own small voice and sings in its own way.” As the children carefully touch the pieces of clay, they listen for the songs they sing and think about the hands that shaped them. And as they examine the pottery’s designs, their imaginations conjure up details of the people’s lives who made and used this pottery. Bahti’s animated pen-and-ink drawings of the pottery’s primitive figures and designs won a prestigious Caldecott honor.