The Christmas Starfish by J.B. Auchter is a holiday picture book that takes readers beneath the waves for a seasonal adventure in Cape Cod Bay. Framed as a story shared on a winter night, the tale imagines Santa’s sleigh gliding not only through the sky...

In A Stargazer by Tuula Pere, Aylin is a young girl who falls ill with a high fever. While resting, she finds comfort and a bit of magic from the starry sky just outside her window. A glowing visitor named Vesper appears, and Aylin’s sure...

As Shakespeare once wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” and that’s exactly what the young children in The Leading Role by Tuula Pere are eager to do. It begins one day when a young girl, Emma, discovers...

In Thomas and the Magic Violin by Tuula Pere, a young boy is determined to get a difficult composition for his school’s concert just right. While his friends are outside, Thomas is practicing inside with the windows open, worried that his neighbors are tired of...

A little girl and her stuffed animal friend head off on a dreamy adventure in Kiera & Lamby: Madrid by Nicole O’Connor. It starts in Kiera’s bedroom, where she and her pal, Lamby, hop on a floating blanket to begin a magical adventure. They soon...

People can be annoying. Some slurp their drinks, some burp loudly, there are interrupters, those who pay no regard to time, people who stare, and those who snore. But none is as annoying as the narrator’s pet, Peeve, who is not your typical animal but...

In Linda Maria Frank and JoAnn Vergona Krapp’s The Monster Bones of St. Frederick Island, Douglas Crawford travels to coastal Maine with his parents, his sister Janet, and his friend Wesley for a summer vacation that changes course after Douglas learns about a large skeleton...

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be,” and in Olivia Dives In by Melissa-Sue John and Olivia Lauren John, the title character must decide who she wants to be. Olivia Lauren is...

The Boy in the Balloon: The Tiger and the Pocket Watch by Katie York Eroe centers on Jesse, a nine-year-old boy living with his inventor parents in a flying hot-air balloon house. Jesse’s life is already unusual, shaped by constant travel and curiosity-driven learning, but...

Some of us find it very difficult to stand up in front of others and speak. Livy Lou has that problem; she’s very quiet and shy. In Sally Lou Loveman’s Livy Lou Lovely Loves to Speak, Livy Lou finds her voice and her courage, and...