New Releases by Judy Sierra

From habitual to ritual. Created by a Yoga and meditation instructor, this journal is for people who want to disrupt automated routines and develop rituals to build a more joyful life. Fifty-two rituals, one for each week of the year, to practice and reflect on your life mindfully. Mindfulness means paying attention, to be aware of the choices you are not making. Being aware of what brings you joy and what doesn''t will allow you to make changes and adjustments to design the life you always wanted. This journal asks the right questions and guides you in the right direction; to reflect on your days, inviting joy in your daily chaos.

From the bestselling creators of Wild About Books comes a rhyming, counting, and teamwork-focused picture book about the beginnings of a new zoo! When Takoda the tiger cub happens upon a tumbledown mall, the lone cub imagines a zoo. All Takoda needs is a capable crew to lend a paw or two--or three, four, or more. Two rhinos, three lemurs, four oryx, and eventually ten crocodiles turn up to help. Soon the animals are finding places to pitch in: bears are carving out burrows, elephants are stomping the way for a playground, and crocodiles are crafting a waterslide. It seems everyone''s got something to do--everyone, that is, except for ten eager bugs. Will they be underestimated for their size or will this be a new kind of zoo where everyone counts? Judy Sierra''s rhymes and Marc Brown''s colorful, folk-inspired art lend themselves to themes of counting and teamwork in this new picture book all about how a tiger cub and a whole lot of friends to count on add up to one wonderful zoo. A Bank Street Best Book of the Year, Outstanding Merit "The creators of Wild About Books and Wild About You! again demonstrate finely tuned creative teamwork in this nimble tale about cooperation, inclusivity, and the rewards of a job diligently done."--Publishers Weekly "Sierra''s rollicking rhymes are fun to read aloud and listen to, and Brown''s gouache and pencil illustrations give children lots of details to pore over. This rhythmic, imaginative romp practically reads itself aloud."--Kirkus

“Teachers will have field day with this wordplay; this caper is clever, capricious, and cunning.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Bored with sitting in a dictionary ‘day in, day out,’ the words make a break for it and organize a parade which…introduce linguistics terminology in just about the most playful way possible.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “This is a charming, peppy introduction, enhanced by Comstock’s energetic, retro-flair illustrations, which fill the pages with cavorting words and creative details…In approach and format, this is both entertaining and educational—likely to hold and pique kids’ interest in the topic and provide a fun learning supplement.” —Booklist (starred review) When all of the words escape from the dictionary, it’s up to Noah Webster to restore alphabetical order in this supremely wacky picture book that celebrates language. Words have secret lives. On a quiet afternoon the words escape the dictionary (much to the consternation of Mr. Noah Webster) and flock to Hollywood for a huge annual event—Lexi-Con. Liberated from the pages, words get together with friends and relations in groups including an onomatopoeia marching band, the palindrome family reunion, and hide-and-seek antonyms. It’s all great fun until the words disagree and begin to fall apart. Can Noah Webster step in to restore order before the dictionary is disorganized forever?

A collection of books a puppet to learn about manners.

A lively new picture-book biography of the most beloved children’s book author of all time: Dr. Seuss! Have you ever wondered how the great Dr. Seuss wrote his most famous book? Did you know that for The Cat in the Hat, he wasn’t allowed to make up the fun words he was known for—like OOBLECK and IT-KUTCH and HIPPO-NO-HUNGUS? He was only allowed to use words from a very strict list! This bouncy account of the early career of Dr. Seuss (a.k.a. Ted Geisel) proves that sometimes limitations can be the best inspiration of all. Kid-friendly prose (with Seussian rhyme for Ted’s dialogue) and whimsical illustrations by award winner Kevin Hawkes recall the work of Dr. Seuss himself. Writing tips from Dr. Seuss and exclusive letters from the author and illustrator, detailing how they created this book, are included!

Animal toddlers arrive for storytime with Miss Bingo the flamingo.

A little girl is shopping in a grocery store when—surprise!—she meets a dinosaur. Don''t worry. The dinosaur is very friendly. She''s polite, too. In this funny story, told in lilting read-aloud rhyme, the girl has numerous opportunities to be helpful to the clumsy shopping dino and demonstrate when to say "thank you," "excuse me," "I''m sorry," "You''re welcome," and other niceties of life. Tim Bowers''s whimsical illustrations bring an extra dimension of fun to Judy Sierra''s hilarious picture book fantasy. Altogether, Suppose You Meet a Dinosaur is an entertaining and painless way to show preschoolers why basic manners are a good thing to have.

Snuggle up with this fun bedtime board book, perfect for toddlers learning their ABCs! Judy Sierra’s rollicking alphabet story features the lowercase letters of the alphabet. Like children, they have a trunkful of tricks for putting off bedtime. But ultimately their moms and dads (the capital letters) succeed in tucking them in with a good-night kiss. Melissa Sweet’s watercolor, pencil, and collage illustrations enliven these little letters with animated expressions, and Judy Sierra’s brief rhyming story begs repeat readings at bedtime.

The Little Red Hen gives old MacDonald some pointers on composting — and a legendary farm is born — in this rhyming, rollicking read-aloud. Features an audio read-along! Once upon a time, Old MacDonald didn’t have a farm. He just had a yard — a yard he didn’t want to mow. But under the direction of the wise (and ecologically sensitive) Little Red Hen, Mac learns to look at the environment in a very different way, and whole new worlds start to bloom with the help of some mud, garbage, horse poop, and worms! Judy Sierra’s spirited verse, paired with Matthew Myers’s exuberant illustrations, yields a fresh take on a children’s classic, complete with raised-bed gardens and an organic farmers’ market—making this a perfect story for armchair gardeners and devoted locavores of all sizes.

Struggling with an overgrown yard and his own aimlessness, Old MacDonald receives advice from the wise and ecologically sensible Little Red Hen, who helps him compost his way through the steps of creating a thriving organic farm. By the best-selling author of Wild About Books.

The tree kangaroo at the zoo would like nothing more than a baby of her own. So, when a new egg arrives via the endangered species van, the ''roo jumps at the chance to take care of it, even when no one else wants it. Soon, out comes a penguin and all the animals chip in to help because, as the tree kangaroo says, "Penguins eat fishes." Told in Judy Sierra''s classic rollicking rhyme, and paired with Marc Brown''s breathtaking folk-art style paintings, Wild About You! is another delightful collaboration from this New York Times bestselling duo that fans of Wild About Books and ZooZical will want to adopt for their own book collections.

OVER HALF A MILLION COPIES SOLD! Winner of the E.B. White Read Aloud Award It started the summer of 2002, when the Springfield librarian, Molly McGrew, by mistake drove her bookmobile into the zoo. In this rollicking rhymed story, Molly introduces birds and beasts to this new something called reading. She finds the perfect book for every animal—tall books for giraffes, tiny ones for crickets. “She even found waterproof books for the otter, who never went swimming without Harry Potter.” In no time at all, Molly has them “forsaking their niches, their nests, and their nooks,” going “wild, simply wild, about wonderful books.” Judy Sierra’s funny animal tale coupled with Marc Brown’s lush, fanciful paintings will have the same effect on young Homo sapiens. Altogether, it’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys!

Winter weather is keeping children from visiting the zoo. So the animals are out of sorts—listless, grumpy, and no longer fun. All except two little friends, a very small hippo and a baby kangaroo. Their hip-hopping, toe-tapping, and rap-rocking soon has the other animals joining in the hip-aroo beat. "Racoons danced in pairs, baboons danced in troops, and snakes joined the dancers as live hula-hoops." Children''s favorite songs get a funny new spin—seals bark out "The seals on the bus go round and round"—as the animals create their very own musical. Young readers and listeners will be amazed and delighted at how the animals chase the winter doldrums by getting along as friends, pooling their talents, and pushing themselves to new heights. After all, these are the same clever animals who learned to read in Judy Sierra''s and Marc Brown''s Wild About Books, an award-winning New York Times #1 bestselling picture book. ZooZical is sure to inspire some "can do" fun in kindergarten and primary grades.

Winter weather is keeping children from visiting the zoo. So the animals are out of sorts—listless, grumpy, and no longer fun. All except two little friends, a very small hippo and a baby kangaroo. Their hip-hopping, toe-tapping, and rap-rocking soon has the other animals joining in the hip-aroo beat—now brought to life with audio narration in this Read & Listen edition. "Raccoons danced in pairs, baboons danced in troops, and snakes joined the dancers as live hula-hoops." Children''s favorite songs get a funny new spin—seals bark out "The seals on the bus go round and round"—as the animals create their very own musical. Young readers and listeners will be amazed and delighted at how the animals chase the winter doldrums by getting along as friends, pooling their talents, and pushing themselves to new heights. After all, these are the same clever animals who learned to read in Judy Sierra''s and Marc Brown''s Wild About Books, the award-winning New York Times #1 bestselling picture book. ZooZical is sure to inspire some "can do" fun in kindergarten and primary grades. This ebook includes Read & Listen audio narration.

A pirate bride who sinks with her ship, a ghost that gets ever larger, and a big slobbery monster with long green fingers and floppy purple lips are just a few of the characters who populate this collection of silly, spooky tales collected and retold by folklorist Judy Sierra. A compendium of bite-size stories and rhymes, Never Kick a Ghost and Other Silly Chillers is sure to prompt repeat reading and recitation among beginning readers.

DANGER! WARNING! KIDS beware! Bound in the bilious green-spotted fur (100% fake) of an unidentified weird beast, here is a book that kids will love—quite literally—from cover to cover. In the macabre spirit of the Halloween season, funny rhymes range from “Parasite Lost” to “Leap Halloween,” and are illustrated with gruesome graphics. Elementary school kids will want to be the first to own this outrageous fur-clad book, but librarians may prefer the standard library bound edition, minus the fur!

Big Bad Wolf’s first visit to his local library (as related in Mind Your Manners, B.B. Wolf) was such a success that he returns to tell his version of “The Three Little Pigs.” His outrageous spin on the tale draws skeptical remarks from his audience: “Isn’t that wolf’s nose getting longer?” asks Pinocchio. “It’s a cooked-up, half-baked tale,” snaps the Gingerbread Boy. And “Tell the truth, B.B. Wolf!” squeal the Three Little Pigs. Caught in his own lie, B.B. explains that he is a reformed villain: “Now I’m begging on my knees, Little Pigs, forgive me, please!” How B.B. turns his bad old deed into a good new one provides a happy ending to this fun-to-read fractured fairytale.

When B.B. Wolf, who now lives in the Villain Villa Retirement Residence, is invited to the library for a storybook tea, he is careful to follow the advice of his crocodile friend and impresses everyone with how polite he can be.

A good-natured monster thinks a pie made out of flies would be a good dessert, and invites all his friends and relatives over to try it.

A boy sends off for "Professor Swami''s Super Slime" to use as his science fair project and then has to cope with the funny disaster that follows.

A collection of twenty-five nursery rhymes, rewritten to feature vampires, ghouls, mummies, the Loch Ness monster, and other fearsome creatures.

A Spanish folktale about a beautiful butterfly. A cricket, a green tree frog, a little gray mouse all asked her to marry them. She chose the mouse because he sang in a sweet small voice, & their babies would love his lullaby. After he moved into her home, she gave him a bucket & sent him to get water. But the bucket was so heavy that he lost his balance & tumbled down into the pond. A fish snapped him up & he never came home. A dove flew to the butterfly & told her the sad story. The nearby tree dropped its leaves into the pond in sympathy, & the pond offered to help by drying up. The queen & king came to the pond to get water, & their reaction to the loss of the mouse brings about a happy ending to the story. Illus.

Make room in your suitcase for this monstrously entertaining guide to fantastic creatures around the world — and how to elude them. I did not make any of this up. Do you know why you should have baby teeth handy when visiting the Midwest? Or why you should bring a cucumber with you when swimming in Japan? How good are you at solving Russian riddles? From Boston to Bejing, from Moscow to Mali, any place you visit has its own terrifying tales of very real creatures. Complete with handy "gruesomeness ratings," this guide offers all the important facts on some sixty-three folkloric monsters and how (if possible!) to survive an encounter with them. Meticulously researched by Judy Sierra and illustrated in grotesque detail by Henrik Drescher, here is the ultimate resource for any world traveler, armchair or otherwise, hoping to make it home alive.

Miss Darling''s class has twenty-six pets--one for every letter of the alphabet!

Publisher Description

A collection of poems celebrating the habits and habitat of Emperor penguins.

Engaging rhymes capture the familiar rituals of preparing for bed--toys, baths, bottles, and lullabies--as all the little pteranodons and diplodocus and their young relatives get ready to go to sleep. Reprint.

A warm and hilarious bedtime story for all little creatures!