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CLARA CATERPILLAR Clara is a cute cabbage Caterpillar. But to Catisha, who is catty and crimson, Clara is only a common caterpillar with no hope of becoming a colorful butterfly. Sure enough, Clara comes out cream colored. And during an encounter with a hungry crow, Clara proves that being colorful and conspicuous doesn't compare with being common, content, and courageous. Pamela Duncan Edwards and Henry Cole's comic and compelling alliterative collaboration is captivating! <click here for activities to use with Clara Caterpillar> EARTHQUACK In this inspired take on Henny Penny, who thought the sky was falling, Chucky Ducky, Lucy Goosey, and Vickie, Nickie, and Rickie Chickie spread the alarm that the earth is quaking. But just like Henny Penny, these concerned animals find that the cause of the crisis they fear is not what they expect at all. <click
here for activities to use with Earthquack> MICE AND BEANS "When there's room in the heart, there's room in the house, except for a mouse." Those are the words that Rosa María remembers (an old saying from her mother) as she's preparing for the birthday of Little Catalina, her soon-to-be 7-year-old granddaughter. She's hoping to squeeze the entire family into her tiny casita for a fiesta with enchiladas, rice and beans ("no dinner was complete without rice and beans!"), birthday cake, a brand-new swing set, and even a piñata packed with candy. But in the week before the party, there's so much to keep track of ("I am so busy that I'm forgetting to remember!") that she's just not sure she'll have everything ready. And to top it off, she keeps forgetting to set mousetraps for all the ratones scurrying around her home... or does she? She might not know it yet, but Rosa María lives with some pretty clever mice. <click here for activities to use with Mice and Beans>
Under the quilt of night a young slave girl leads her loved ones away from the slave master who worked them: "hoeing and picking, / mending and sewing, / till my hands got raw." In this striking companion to Deborah Hopkinson and James Ransome's Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, Hopkinson uses the rhythm of verse to echo the drumming of the slaves' feet as they travel along the Underground Railroad in pre-Civil War times. Ransome's oil painting illustrations are rich with the purple hues of night, and fraught with the tense emotions of the men, women, and children trying to escape--and those helping them. Over the course of the story, the deep purple gradually lightens, as the sun begins to rise and the slaves approach freedom. The final illustration is a veritable sunburst of brilliant orange and yellow. Our heroine's voice "flies up in song. / My own song / of running in sunshine / and dancing through fields. / I'll jump every fence in my way." A truly glorious celebration of the brave souls who kept alive the secret network of people helping others escape slavery. <click
here for activities to use with Under the Quilt
of Night> WAIT! NO PAINT! Once upon a time there were three little pigs. They lived together in an old house on top of a tall hill....along with seventy-three other little pigs. Not even pigs can live in such crowded conditions! In Bruce Whatley's quirky version of this classic folktale, the three little pigs desperately want to escape from the mayhem and build their own little dream homes. But wait! Was the wolf's nose just erased? Did one of the pigs turn green? And what does it all have to do with the illustrator who has run out of red paint? <click here for activities to use with Wait! No Paint!> <click here for activities to use with all books> <click here for a list of related books>
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