From beloved actor Alan Arkin comes a new edition of his classic picture book, updated and reissued with irresistible new art.Tony is repeatedly denied the opportunity to participate as the rest of his family fixes up their new home—they all say he's too young! And so, off he goes to a nearby hillside and builds a house of his own! He lays a stone floor, chops down trees to make log walls and a roof, and piles loads of rocks to make a fireplace and chimney. When his family finds him napping in the new home on a woven grass rug, they applaud his work and ask if they can move in with him! Partially inspired by true events, this timeless story by actor Alan Arkin reminds the youngest readers that they are as capable, smart, and important as anyone else!
A breathtaking reverso poem about two girls—separated by barbed wire, connected across generations.⭐ Starred review from Kirkus⭐ Starred review from Publishers Weekly⭐ Starred review from School Library JournalA Kirkus Most Anticipated Children's Book of Spring 2026In Barbed Wire Between Us, a single poem holds two lives, separated by decades yet bound by the same stretch of barbed wire.Read forward, a Japanese American girl is uprooted and sent to an incarceration camp during World War II, her world reduced to dust, distance, and longing. Read in reverse, and the poem transforms: now a Latina girl stands in that same place, detained generations later, her story echoing across time.With language as spare as it is powerful, Mia Wenjen shapes a reverso poem that reveals how history can fold in on itself—how loss, resilience, and hope repeat in new forms. Violeta Encarnación’s evocative artwork deepens the emotional landscape, illuminating both the quiet tenderness and the stark realities of life behind the wire.Together, they create a book that reads like a mirror held up to the past—and the present.A luminous and unflinching meditation on memory, injustice, and the fragile promise of belonging, Barbed Wire Between Us lingers long after the final line—asking not only what happened, but what we choose to see, and what we dare to change.
An imaginative nonfiction middle grade exploration of mythology, paleontology, and early civilizations through legendary creatures from across the globe and the fossils that might have inspired their origins that “will draw in the most reluctant readers” (School Library Journal, starred review).What if we lived in a world with fire-breathing dragons? Or enigmatic, alluring mermaids? How about rainbow-nibbling unicorns? These fabled beasts aren’t as far from us as we think. After all, their legends had to have come from somewhere… Join us as we weave together legendary tales and new scientific findings to uncover connections between real and mythical creatures. Delving into the past, we’ll see how our ancestors took what they found in the world and created the beloved fantastical creatures we dream about today. Could the skull of a protoceratops have inspired the hooked beak of a griffin? From manatee to mermaid, heron to phoenix, we’ll trace the truth behind these fantastical creatures and make some new discoveries along the way!
