New Releases by Marcia Sewall

In this English folk tale, an unwanted dog is taken in by a little girl whose family''s farm is bewitched. Can this little dog with big ideas help put everything right?

In this Norwegian folk tale, an old widower squire is determined to marry the farmer''s daughter...but she is equally determined he will not.

Aye, Governor Bradford calls us pilgrims. We are English and England was our home...But our lives were ruled by King James, and for many years it seemed as though our very hearts were in prison in England... September, 1620, our lives changed. We were seventy menfolk and womenfolk, thirty-two good children, a handful of cocks and hens, and two dogs, gathered together on a dock in Plymouth, England, ready to set sail for America in a small ship called the Mayflower... In a text that mirrors their language and thoughts, Marcia Sewall has masterfully recreated the coming of the pilgrims to the New World, and the daily flow of their days during the first years in the colony they called Plimoth. And in stunning, light-filled paintings, she brings to brilliant life that important era in American history.

This moving account of James Towne''s difficult early years is told from the viewpoint of one of its settlers and enhanced by original quotations. During the first summer of 1607, half the James Towne colony died; food was scarce, and the settlers battled oppressive heat and sickness. Over the next few years, supply ships from England became the colony''s lifeline, as they brought much-needed stores of food and carried back offerings from the new land, as well as the settlers'' homesick letters. Conditions began to improve when Captain John Smith was elected president of the colony, and James Towne soon doubled in size. While some of the settlers had been reluctant to work, Smith required participation from all, and the colonists began to take pride in improving their conditions. Furthermore, by learning the native language and befriending a Native American girl named Pocahontas, Smith was able to establish, temporarily, an uneasy peace between the settlers and the natives whose land they had taken. As new settlers began to arrive from England though, the resources of the budding colony were strained, and in the autumn of 1609 the colony suffered a Starving Time. Deciding to abandon James Towne at last, the colonists headed back toward England, only to have their journey intercepted by a messenger, who informed the settlers that new leaders sent by the King were due to arrive in the flailing colony any day, and urged them to return. Not for long after their arrival, the discouraged James Towne colonists were met by a new governor and a ship full of healthy passengers with enough supplies and hope to work together to ensure James Towne''s survival.

Rooted in Rocky Mountain legend, this is the story of a 10-year-old boy and a legendary Indian, each determined to win a race and a prize.

We are Wampanoags, People of the Breaking Day. Nippa''uus the Sun, in his journey through the sky, warms us first as he rises over the rim of the sea. At his birth each new morning we say, "Thank you, Nippa''uus, for returning to us with your warmth and light and beauty." But it is Kiehtan, the Great Spirit, who made us all: we, the two-legged who stand tall, and the four-legged; those that swim and those that fly and the little people who crawl; and flowers and trees and rocks. He made us all, brothers sharing the earth. So begins the story of the Wampanoag people, the tribe that lived in southeastern Massachusetts at the time the Pilgrims landed. In this companion book to The Pilgrims of Plimoth, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for nonfiction, Marcia Sewall recreates the world of the Wampanoags, the People of the Breaking Day. In a voice that evokes the pride and natural poetry of these native people and in paintings glowing with life and light, the distinguished author-illustrator presents another view of an important time in American history, a time before the meeting of two very different cultures.

An illustrated version of a traditional "penny rhyme" describing some unusual sights.

Chronicles, in text and illustrations, the day-to-day life of the early Pilgrims in the Plimouth Colony.