NCW Libraries

Macabre, ironic, and witty epitaphs share how prehistoric creatures like the terror bird, the woolly mammoth, and the T-rex met their demise. The ever-entertaining J. Patrick Lewis and the inimitable Jane Yolen offer a collection organized by era, with posthumous poems paired with short secondary text providing additional, factual information about each creature.

A boy and his dog find a newly hatched bird in a nest in a magical little valley.

Hannah resents the traditions of her Jewish heritage until time travel places her in the middle of a small Jewish village in Nazi-occupied Poland.

When Sally and her brother spot a beached whale on their way home from school in Maine, the town races to save the whale. Meanwhile, Sally sits close to the whale's eye and assures the stranded creature of its strength and beauty.

"Under Grandpa's watchful eye, the kids are thrilled to discover that the craggy rocks, tufted grass, and windswept trees on Giant Island are much more than they seem. Are the children the first to fathom this huge secret, or does Grandpa have a secret of his own?"--

Told in rhyme, a bear settles on the narrator's porch, and is soon followed by many other woodland friends, until the porch collapses under the weight--but bear and his friends repair the damage and almost everybody is invited to lunch.

Features poems about various insect and arachnid species and includes facts about each.

Relates Sally Jane's experience of changing times in rural America, as she lives through the drowning of the Swift River towns in western Massachusetts to form the Quabbin Reservoir.

"In this unusual collection, poems and photographs focus on shapes in nature. Some shapes are found in familiar places: A circle is the sun and a crescent is the moon. But there are imaginative surprises too: an alligator's tooth is a triangle and a frond's shadow forms a square. Related shape words--round, halo, sphere, etc.--are scattered throughout the spreads. This collaboration captures the beauty of shapes in nature in a playful way."--

"A fish is nervous about a test and a mean-looking substitute teacher at school"--