Sophie Blackall

In this picture book, a boy writes a letter to an imagined alien, explaining all the things he will need to know about Earth and the people who live here--and adding a postscript asking what the alien might look like.

"Everyone needs things to look forward to-big things and small things, on good days and on bad days; things that will buoy our spirits and make us laugh and help us feel alive. In these pages, beloved author and illustrator Sophie Blackall has gathered a collection of joyful things for all of us: things that are always there if we look for them, like the sun coming up; things we can do if the sun is behind a cloud, like baking for other people or...

Sooner or later, every child will ask, Where do babies come from? Answering this question has never been this easy or entertaining! Join a curious little boy who asks everyone from his babysitter to the mailman, getting all sorts of funny answers along the way, before his parents gently set him straight. This title includes read-along subtitles.

"A child imagines what life would be like as a horse"--

It's the Science Fair, and the second grade is all over it! Some kids are making man-eating robots. Some kids are holding their breath for a very, very long time. Some kids are doing interesting things with vacuum cleaners. The theme, obviously, is global warming. But what should Ivy and Bean do? Something involving explosions? Or ropes? Something with ice cubes? Or maybe...maybe something different.

A woman tells her young son the true story of how his great-great-grandfather, Captain Harry Colebourn, rescued and learned to love a bear cub in 1914 as he was on his way to take care of soldiers' horses during World War I, and the bear became the inspiration for A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh.

Everyone in second grade seems set on breaking a world record and friends Ivy and Bean are no exception, deciding to become the youngest people ever to discover a dinosaur skeleton.

Seven-year-old Bean is too young to go to the camp her sister Nancy is attending, so she and her best friend Ivy decide to create their own camp.

When seven-year-old Bean plays a mean trick on her sister, she finds unexpected support for her antics from Ivy, the new neighbor, who is less boring than Bean first suspected.

Raise the mainsail! Batten the hatches! It's time to set sail…on the couch! There's a storm coming, and a child is ready to captain the ship. "Make haste and climb aboard," they call out to their parent, "before you're swept out to sea!" Sea? What sea? The parent is only trying to vacuum the rug. But the child is adamant. It's not a rug--it's the ocean. And that broom? It's the ship's mast. Soon enough, child and parent are both off on an imaginary...