Grade: K

Aloo-ki’s quiet morning of fishing comes to an abrupt when she realizes that her loyal sled dogs have become stranded on an ice floe. Running for help, the young girl soon finds an igloo, but it is empty, its polar bear inhabitants off on a pre-breakfast stroll. Hungry herself, Aloo-ki decides to sample the goodies and then, sated, settles down for a comfy nap. When she awakes, she and the reader will make several happy discoveries. Perfect bedtime reading.

According to A. Wolf, this is the “real” story of “The Three Little Pigs.” From prison (where he is serving time for his alleged crimes), Wolf relates his side of this famous story. The whole hullabaloo started because he had a cold and needed a cup of sugar for his dear granny’s birthday cake. While trying to borrow some from his neighbor in the straw house, he sneezed so hard that he blew down the house and killed the First Little Pig. “It seemed like a shame to leave a perfectly good ham dinner lying there in the straw,” says A. Wolf. “So I ate it up.” History repeats itself a second time, but before it can happen a third time, the police haul him away. Wolf claims that the real story was so unexciting that the reporters jazzed it up with all that “I’ll huff and puff and blow your house down” stuff. Enjoy more of Scieszka and Smith’s revisionist storytelling with The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales! (Penguin, 1992).

Bill Martin, Jr., a master of rhyme leads children through the seasons in this picture book in verse, celebrating the wonders of each month. Greg Shed’s vibrant paintings cast a golden glow on an exuberant brother and sister as they go through the turning seasons–building a January snowman, floating paper boats in the thawing streams of March, splashing through April puddles, and delighting in the wild plums and sun-kissed fields of summer. A December snowfall completes the cycle, warning, “Get ready for a winter morning!”

This adaptation of Margery Williams’s treasured childhood classic tells how a toy rabbit learns what it means to be loved by a child–and how toys become “Real.” This book will bring kids hours of fun as they read the engaging story and color in the pictures.

One Sunday a very hungry caterpillar hatched. He eats his way through a variety of foods that are boldly and colorfully illustrated. The story progresses with the caterpillar spinning a cocoon and waking up into a butterfly, illustrating one of nature’s common but lovely marvels.

Our second Dick and Jane treasury is here! The World of Dick and Jane and Friends is acompilation of some of the best-loved Dick and Jane titles. The treasury includes stories parents and grandparents will remember from Guess Who, The New We Come and Go, and The New We Look and See. Share a classic treasury with a new generation of Dick and Jane readers, who will love the Dick and Jane stories as much as you did!

This picture book is a lively vocabulary stretcher. Van Allsburg presents the alphabet as a 26-act play. Each letter is one act, one image: “Act 1: The A was in an avalanche.” “Act II: The B was badly bitten.” First you see the image and then you turn the page to read the clever twist on each black-and-white letter.

Gerald is careful. Piggie is not. Piggies cannot help smiling. Gerald can. Gerald worries so that Piggie does not have to. Gerald and Piggie are best friends. In There Is a Bird on Your Head! Gerald discovers that there is something worse than a bird on your head — two birds on your head! Can Piggie help her best friend?