Melissa Sweet

A Caldecott Honor Medal recipient and the illustrator of nearly 100 children's books, Melissa Sweet delivers the charming story of Tony Sarg, the man known as ''America's Puppet Master.'' With delightful, rhyming prose, Sweet takes listeners back to the 1920s to meet the designer who created the first helium-filled balloons for Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Celebrating the fun and playfulness of Sarg's popular creations, Balloons Over Broadway brims...

In this cumulative nursery rhyme and folk song, a parade forms when several farm animals join a boy and his apple wagon.

Suggests a method of reading that begins with planting oneself beneath a tree and leads to a book party one hopes will never end.

Moonlight the cat loves everything about Halloween, from pumpkins to children to candy.

While Spike, a tiny salamander, practices being the monster he believes he is, other animals call him cute and funny but when a gila monster arrives and the other creatures hide, Spike shows his true nature.

Throughout the day, Baby Bear finds a book to fit every special moment.

Baabwaa and William are friends, and together they decide to have an adventure of their own. After meeting a fierce wolf in sheep's wool they form an unusual friendship with the wolf, teaching him to read and knit. They also lose a little weight.

Youngsters awaken in the morning with the belief that they are the greatest little ones in the world, whether they are children in their mothers' arms, eagles soaring above mountains, whales swimming in the ocean, or other animals in their domains.

"SOME PIG," Charlotte the spider's praise for Wilbur, is just one fondly remembered snippet from E. B. White's Charlotte's Web. In Some Writer!, the two-time Caldecott Honor winner Melissa Sweet mixes White's personal letters, photos, and family ephemera with her own exquisite artwork to tell his story, from his birth in 1899 to his death in 1985. Budding young writers will be fascinated and inspired by the journalist, New Yorker contributor, and...

Celia Thaxter grew up on a desolate island off the coast of Maine, where her father worked as lighthouse keeper. Amid the white and gray of the sea, the rocks, and even the birds, young Celia found color where she could: green mosses and purple starfish and pink morning glories by the shore. And she planted her first garden, tucking bright marigolds between rocky ledges. When she was twelve, Celia's family moved to nearby Appledore Island, where her...