New Releases by Joyce Dunbar

Meditation and visualization, if approached in an inventive and appealing manner, bring enormous benefits to children. It can calm their anxieties, build their self-esteem, and teach them quietness and thoughtfulness. Consisting of 20 narrative-based meditations, this book, the follow-up to the hugely successful Nightlights, offers even more stories to help your child find inner calm and emotional balance and is designed for parents to use with any child between ages 4 and 8.

Mother-daughter team Joyce and Polly Dunbar offer a sweet and whimsical confection for babies, inspired by a nursery rhyme. It’s late at night, and everyone is sleeping—except for pat-a-cake baby! All dressed up in his chef’s coat and hat, baby wants to make a very special cake. Time to wake up Candy baby, Jelly baby, and Allsorts baby—miniature cherubic figures who float through the pages to lend a hand. One by one, they add ingredients, from glitzy sugar to yolky jokey eggs, until it’s time to bake, pat, and decorate the cake. Finally it’s ready for tasting, just in time for a special guest (the man in the moon!) to have a slice. This surreal and colorful treat is just right for sending little ones off to dreamland.

Aan de hand van twintig (voorlees)verhalen maak je kennis met jezelf en jouw fantasie. Met adviezen voor begeleiders over meditatie en visualisatie. Vanaf 4 t/m 8 jaar.

Nightlights is a book of stories to read to children, but stories with a difference. It''s a collection of twenty interactive meditation stories that have bene specially written to calm and relax your child at bedtime, while at the same time engaging and stimulating his or her imagination. These stories also help children in many other important ways. They help them to focus their minds and develop their powers of concentration and visualization, as well as learn more about emotions and feelings. Although not meditations in the strict sense, they do serve as a good preparation for learning real meditation later on. They also foster imagination and creativity, help children deal with their burgeoning anxieties, and help them take their first steps towards developing their own unique identity. In the Introduction, Civardi provides techniques to help parents develop their out-loud reading skills, shows how to create the right mood, and gives practical advice on how to talk with your child about what he or she has just heard. After each story, there is a brief list of affirmations which help to settle the message in the minds of both parent and child.

Does Duck dazzle as much as the peacock? Does he dawdle like the tortoise, or does he dash like the hare? No? Well, what does Duck do? Does Duck . . . dare? A gorgeous new story from the author of TELL ME SOMETHING HAPPY BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP and the illustrator of DADDY IS MY HERO.

Good puss or bad cat?Jekyll or Hyde?One and the same?Who decides?Puss Jekyll is the soft cuddly cat of the house grooming her fur, but at night she becomes Cat Hyde, hunting mice, all fang and claw. Page by page this delightful book explores the two very distinct personalities of the enchanting pet. Sleeping in a cosy spot or prowling in the moonlight, lapping milk from a bowl or stalking a defenceless trembling vole, playing with a ball of wool or savaging her prey, graceful and aristocratic or ruthless street fighter, can this really be the same creature?The beautifully evocative rhythmic and rhyming text is accompanied by luminous coloured-pencil and watercolour drawings that make the reader want to reach out and feel the fur. This treat for cat-lovers of all ages is from the highly acclaimed author of bestselling picture books such as Tell Me Something Before You Go to Sleep, and the illustrator of such classics as Martin Waddell''s The Pig in the Pond and the Boston Globe Horn Book Award winning In the Rain with Baby Duck.

In this undersea adventure, Piglet Squid spends all day smiling his big, happy smile, but his friends in the deep are always so woebegone. One day, he embarks on a quest to find something magical to show them all, so that they too will have a reason to smile!Inspired by the real-life sea creature, piglet squids are about the size of an avocado and can be found in the deepwater of almost all the oceans. The unusual pattern of skin pigmentation in the squid shown here, means that he is always smiling.

This delightful collection of mini hardback picture books contains five stories that are ideal for sharing either at home or on the go. The pack contains everything from hilarious rhymes to bedtime classics: Quentin Blake''s Mister Magnolia, Anthony Browne''s Willy and Hugh, John Prater''s Again!, The Owl and the Pussycat illustrated by Ian Beck, and Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go to Sleep by Joyce Dunbar and Debi Gliori.

Lorenzo no puede dormir, no le gusta la oscuridad, debajo de la cama podría estar escondiéndose un monstruo. ¡Así es! Se trata de diminuto monstruo con un enorme apetito, que le encanta comer la oscuridad, la engulle toda. Hasta que muy pronto todo es luz, pero el monstruo sigue teniendo una gran sensación de vacío, que solo el cariño de un niño puede llenar. Jimmy Liao junto con Joyce Dunbar presentan una fantástica y conmovedora historia.

This little girl wants her very own miniature wild animal. Anything from a little snappy happy crocodile or a tiny trundle rumble elephant, to a pocket-sized grizzly bear. But as her big brother explains, a real wild animal would make a terrible pet. You can''t nuzzle a crocodile, or tickle a wild elephant, and a grizzly bear belongs in a cave not a pocket! But there''s one pet, a tiny pet, that loves to be tickled and cuddled. It''s like a tiger, only much smaller . . . A delightfully rhythmic tale, bursting with imagination, and a playful introduction to a world of wild animals.

Three strange creatures that do not know their purpose find a boy lost in the woods and they help each other find their homes and identities.

Sous le lit de Jojo se trouve un monstre étrange, un monstre très petit, très éveillé, et qui meurt de faim !

A tiny, hungry monster grows bigger and bigger as he eats every bite of darkness on Earth.

Hiding under Jo-Jo''s bed is a tiny monster with a big appetite for darkness who gobbles up the night and grows bigger with every bite until there is no darkness left anywhere, from the earth to the stars.

Originally published: London: Doubleday, 2006.

Pippin and Tog are determined to find that missing sock! Featuring tongue-twisting text and vivid pictures, this book bursts with colorful footwear for kids to look for, count, and pair! "[A] rollicking tale...[M]arker-bright illustrations, with socks spilling out in every direction, are delightfully chaotic." - Booklist

Ce n''était pas un silence ordinaire, C''était le silence de la Lune. Orlo est un petit prince très silencieux isolé par une bulle de Lune. Il n''entend pas les sons de la nature, il ne répond pas quand sa mère l''appelle. Mais l''Oiseau-Lune aux pouvoirs magiques va lui apprendre à parler avec ses mains et à écouter avec ses yeux. Ses parents à leur tour sauront-ils ouvrir leur esprit et leur cœur pour le comprendre ?

A baby takes a journey in a shoe and after visiting the zoo, flying, and inviting the Queen to tea, he falls asleep and awakens to two very big surprises.

Saturday decides that there has to be more to life than clucking, scratching and pecking. He tries to do all the things that the other farmyard animals can do, until he sees the most magnificent creature of all, and discovers that a little chick can have a moment of glory too.

On a hot summer day when Gander wants to make a pond to splash in, he and Panda finally find a way to catch enough rain water for the project.

Smudge the rabbit longs for a brother or sister but must wait for springtime.

Singing, "Love me! Love me!", the Love-Me Bird searches high and low for a true love. This sweet narrative by Joyce Dunbar is perfectly complemented by Sophie Fatus'' elegant yet gentle illustrations. THE LOVE-ME BIRD is the sweet story of a small bird who will go to any lengths to find a love. At her friend, Shut-Eye, the owl''s coaxing, she primps and preens and plays hard to get, to no avail. Her song is not answered. But after Shut-Eye advises her to change her tune, the Love-Me bird finally finds her true love.

An unusual and deeply touching story by an acclaimed author. Joelly loves to dress up as a fairy and wave at the trains as they speed by. But it’s too scary to cross over the railway line, even though it is the quickest way to Gran’s house, where she goes often since Mum has been ill. Joelly wonders what it would be like to be a real fairy, or even an angel -- would she be able to fly across the bridge? Might she even know how to make Mum better?