Margaret Chodos-Irvine.  Ella Sarah Gets Dressed

Despite the advice of others in her family, Ellah Sarah persists in wearing the striking and unusual outfit of her own choosing.

Vicki Cobb.  I Face the Wind

Introduces the characteristics and actions of the wind through simple hands-on activities.

Nicola Davies.  Surprising Sharks

Introduces many different species of sharks, pointing out such characteristics as the small size of the dwarf lantern shark and the physical characteristics and behavior that makes sharks killing machines.

Brian Floca.  The Racecar Alphabet

An exciting day at the races highlights the letters of the alphabet as a variety of automobiles burn fuel speeding through the curves of the track.

Jackie French.  Diary of a Wombat

In his diary, a wombat describes his life of eating, sleeping, and getting to know some new human neighbors.

Simon James.  Little One Step

As three duckling brothers cross forest and field to return to their mother, the older ones encourage the youngest by teaching him a game that earns him the name of Little One Step.

Steve Jenkins & Robin Page.  What Do You Do With a Tail Like

This?   Explore the many amazing things that animals can do with their ears, eyes, mouths, noses, feet, and tails.

Melinda Long.  How I Became a Pirate

Jeremy Jacob joins Braid Beard and his pirate crew and finds out about pirate language, pirate manners, and other aspects of their life.

Yuyi Morales.  Just a Minute:  A Trickster Tale and Counting

Book   In this version of a traditional tale, Senor Calavera arrives at Grandma Beetle's door, ready to take her to the next life, but after helping her count, in English and Spanish, as she makes her birthday preparations, he changes his mind.

Helen Recorvits.  My Name is Yoon

Disliking her name as written in English, Korean-born Yoon, or "shining wisdom," refers to herself as "cat," "bird," and "cupcake," as a way to feel more comfortable in her new school and new country.

April Pulley Sayre and Jeff Sayre.  One is a Snail Ten is a Crab:

A Counting by Feet  Book   A counting book featuring animals with different numbers of feet.

Mo Willems.  Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

A funny pigeon tries everything to get you to let him drive the bus while the bus driver is away.

Avi.  Silent Movie

In the early years of the twentieth century, a Swedish family encounters separation and other hardships upon immigrating to New York City until the son is cast in a silent movie, in a picture book that evokes an actual silent movie.

Don Brown.  Mack Made Movies

A simple biography of the director whose silent films immortalized such slapstick clowns as the Keystone Kops, Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, and Ben Turpin.

Anthony Browne.  The Shape Game

The author/illustrator describes how his mother's wish to spend her birthday visiting an art museum with her family changed the course of his life forever.

Deborah Chandra and Madeleine Comora.  George Washington's

Teeth    A rollicking rhyme portrays George Washington's lifelong struggle with bad teeth. A timeline taken from diary entries and other nonfiction sources follows.

Eileen Christelow.  Vote!

Using a campaign for mayor as an example, shows the steps involved in an election, from the candidate's speeches and rallies, to the voting booth where every vote counts, to the announcement of the winner.

Sharon Creech.  Granny Torrelli Makes Soup

With the help of her wise old grandmother, twelve-year-old Rosie manages to work out some problems in her relationship with her best friend, Bailey, the boy next door.

Francesco D'Adamo.  Iqbal:  A Novel

A fictionalized account of the Pakistani child who escaped from bondage in a carpet factory and went on to help liberate other children like him before being gunned down at the age of thirteen.

Kate DiCamillo.  The Tale of Despereaux:  Being the Story of a

Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread   The adventures of Desperaux Tilling, a small mouse of unusual talents, the princess that he loves, the servant girl who longs to be a princess, and a devious rat determined to bring them all to ruin.

Jeanne DuPrau.  The City of Ember

In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions.

Carol Fenner.  Snowed in with Grandmother Silk

Ruddy is disappointed when his parents go on a cruise and he must stay with his fussy grandmother for a whole week, but an unexpected snowstorm reveals a surprising side of Grandmother Silk.

Virginia Hamilton.  Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl

In this retelling, using Gullah speech, of a familiar story the wily Brer Rabbit outwits Brer Fox who has set out to trap him.

Horse Hooves and Chicken Feet:  Mexican Folktales

Mexican folktales invite us into a magical world of enchantment and transformation, populated by cats and kings, priests and tricksters, ordinary people and supernatural beings.

Kathleen Krull.  Harvesting Hope:  The Story of Cesar Chavez

A biography of Cesar Chavez, from age ten when he and his family lived happily on their Arizona ranch, to age thirty-eight when he led a peaceful protest against California migrant workers' miserable working conditions.

Kathryn Lasky.  The Man Who Made Time Travel

Describes the need for sailors to be able to determine their position at sea and the efforts of John Harrison, an eighteenth century man who spent his life refining instruments to enable them to do this.

Karen Levine.  Hana's Suitcase:  A True Story

A biography of a Czech girl who died in the Holocaust, told in alternating chapters with an account of how the curator of a Japanese Holocaust center learned about her life after Hana's suitcase was sent to her.

Bea Uusma Schyffert.  The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the

Moon:  The Story of Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins   A biography of the astronaut, Michael Collins, who circled the moon in the Apollo 12 space capsule while his colleagues Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the lunar module and walked on the moon.

Jacqueline Woodson.  Locomotion

In a series of poems, eleven-year-old Lonnie writes about his life, after the death of his parents, separated from his younger sister, living in a foster home, and finding his poetic voice at school.

Ann Cameron.  Colibri

Kidnapped when she was very young by an unscrupulous man who has forced her to lie and beg to get money, a twelve-year-old Mayan girl endures an abusive life, always wishing she could return to the parents she can hardly remember.

Ilene Cooper.  Jack:  The Early Years of John F. Kennedy

A description of the childhood and youth of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States.

Candace Fleming.  Ben Franklin's Almanac:  Being a True Account of

the Good Gentleman's Life   Brings together eighteenth century etchings, artifacts, and quotations to create the effect of a scrapbook of the life of Benjamin Franklin.

Russell Freedman.  In Defense of Liberty:  The Story of America's Bill

of Rights   Describes the origins, applications of, and challenges to the ten amendments to the United States Constitution that comprise the Bill of Rights.

Cornelia Funke.  Inkheart

Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.

Kevin Henkes.  Olive's Ocean

On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year-old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, on her relationship with her grandmother, on her feelings for an older boy, and on her plans to be a writer.

Kimberly Willis Holt.  Keeper of the Night

Isabel, a thirteen-year-old girl living on the island of Guam, and her family try to cope with the death of Isabel's mother who committed suicide.

Diana Wynne Jones.  The Merlin Conspiracy

Roddy and Nick, two teenagers with magical powers they are just learning to use, find that they must work together to save Roddy's home world of Blest from destruction by power-hungry wizards.

Betsy Harvey Kraft.  Theodore Roosevelt:  Champoin of the American

Spirit   A biography of the energetic New Yorker who became the twenty-sixth president of the United States and who once exclaimed "No one has ever enjoyed life more than I have."

David Macaulay.  Mosque

David Macaulay reveals the methods and materials used to design and construct a mosque in late-sixteenth-century Turkey. Through the fictional story and Macaulay's distinctive full-color illustrations, readers will learn not only how such monumental structures were built but also how they functioned in relation to the society they served.

Geraldine McCaughrean.  Stop the Train!

Despite the opposition of the owner of the Red Rock Runner railroad in 1893, the new settlers of Florence, Oklahoma, are determined to build a real town.

Jim Murphy.  An American Plague:  The True and Terrifying Story of

the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793   It's 1793, and there's an invisible killer roaming the streets of Philadelphia. The city's residents are fleeing in fear. This killer has a name-- yellow fever--but everything else about it is a mystery. Its cause is unknown and there is no cure. This [book] traces the devastating course of the epidemic.

Theresa Nelson.  Ruby Electric

Twelve-year-old Ruby Miller, movie buff and aspiring screen writer, tries to resolve the mysteries surrounding her little brother's stuffed woolly mammoth and their father's five year absence.

Uri Orlev.  Run, Boy, Run

Based on the true story of a nine-year-old boy who escapes the Warsaw Ghetto and must survive throughout the war in the Nazi-occupied Polish countryside.

Nancy Osa.  Cuba 15

Violet Paz, a Chicago high school student, reluctantly prepares for her upcoming "quince," a Spanish nickname for the celebration of an Hispanic girl's fifteenth birthday.

Edith Pattou.  East

A young woman journeys to a distant castle on the back of a great white bear who is the victim of a cruel enchantment.

Richard Peck.  The River Between Us

During the early days of the Civil War, the Pruitt family takes in two mysterious young ladies who have fled New Orleans to come north to Illinois.

Terry Pratchett.  The Wee Free Men

A young witch-to-be named Tiffany teams up with the Wee Free Men, a clan of six-inch-high blue men, to rescue her baby brother and ward off a sinister invasion from Fairyland.

Diana Preston.   Remember the Lusitania!

An account of the World War I German torpedo attack on and sinking of the passenger liner, the Lusitania, describing the experiences of some of those involved.

Philip Reeve.  Mortal Engines

In the distant future, when cities move about and consume smaller towns, a fifteen-year-old apprentice is pushed out of London by the man he most admires and must seek answers in the perilous Out-Country, aided by one girl and the memory of another.

J. K. Rowling.  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter is faced with the unreliability of the government of the magical world and the impotence of the authorities at Hogwarts.

Peter Sis.  The Tree of Life:  A Book Depicting the Life of Charles

Darwin Naturalist, Geologist and Thinker   Presents the life of the famous nineteenth-century naturalist using text from Darwin's writings and detailed drawings by Sis.

Jonathan Stroud.  The Amulet of Samarkand

Nathaniel, a magician's apprentice, summons up the djinni Bartimaeus and instructs him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from the powerful magician Simon Lovelace.

Quentin Blake.  Tell Me a Picture

Provides guidance for studying paintings and illustrations from the National Gallery in London to find the story within each.

Marla Frazee.  Roller Coaster

Twelve people set aside their fears and ride a roller coaster, including one who has never done so before.

Mordicai Gerstein.  The Man Who Walked Between the Towers

A lyrical evocation of Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers.

Loreen Leedy and Pat Street.  There's a Frog in My Throat! 

440 Animal Sayings a Little Bird Told Me   Humorous and fun collection of sayings with delightful illustrations.

Michael Morpurgo.  Kensuke's Kingdom

When Michael is swept off his family's yacht, he washes up on a desert island, where he struggles to survive--until he finds he is not alone.

Walter Dean Myers.  Blues Journey

The African experience in America is celebrated with a soulful, affecting blues poem that details the long journey from the Middle Passage to life today. Accompanied by Myers's bold and powerful paintings, "Blues Journey" creates its own resonant music.

Robert Sabuda.  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:  A Pop-up

Adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Original Tale