Though it’s early in the year, time will go quickly when piano teachers need to begin selecting books for their students to prepare for Christmas. Follow the Star: Christmas Songs for Piano—Level 2 by Donna Gielow McFarland, Cherry Wilson, and Tami Wilson will be one...

Donna Gielow McFarland’s Follow the Star: Christmas Songs for Piano—Level 3 is a fun collection of Christmas songs with a variety of pieces for Christmas presenting different challenges for the Level 3 piano student. The selection is a good one, combining the traditional (such as...

Duck and Friends: Bots in a Box by Donna McFarland is a cute, adventurous story about Duck, who has his own farm that needs to be maintained, and his friends Cat and Hen, who keep him company all the time. After getting tired from all...

Donna McFarland’s Duck and Friends Go Into Orbit delivers more than the title promises. Each of its five chapters is well-rounded enough to be separate stories. As well, the book explores a few sites with which even adult readers might be unfamiliar. One example is...

Duck and his friends are invited to attend Bigfoot’s birthday party. After the problems with leaving the cows in charge of the farm, Duck decides to let the alpacas with the odd haircuts watch over it until he returns. The alpacas decide to go on...

I Lost My Elephant is written by Donna McFarland and illustrated by Gayatri Ray. A little boy is distraught because he can’t find his baby elephant, Ellie. He searches his room, the kitchen, and the park and doesn’t find her. He thinks about all the...