Month: August 2012

There is a 100 year-old hero living in the deep blue sea of the Pacific Northwest. She is a 7,000-pound great grandmother and an awesome athlete. Meet Granny, an orca (or killer whale), the hero portrayed by a whale expert in a new children’s picture book, Granny’s Clan: A Tale of Wild Orcas.

It takes a special talent—and a particular ability to remember how young children think—to convey scientific concepts about the natural world to a young audience. Biodiversity? Adaptation? I’d rather play! But a new picture book, Nature’s Patchwork Quilt: Understanding Habitats, does it so gracefully that teachers and parents will find teaching science a pleasure.

Elizabeth Singer Hunt is the bestselling author of the hugely popular Jack Stalwart series. Her love of adventure and travel is what inspired her to create her globe-trotting children’s book character, nine-year-old Secret Agent Jack Stalwart. More than 1 million books have been sold worldwide and the series has been published in multiple languages.

Teaching children to be compassionate—to understand someone else’s suffering and to try and alleviate that suffering—is not easy. Here are a few books that can help impart the message that being kind to one another is essential and that the golden rule is paramount.

To kick off TCBR’s new column “On the Shelf,” which shines a spotlight on brilliant children’s librarians, April Hayley, MLIS, graciously talked to us about becoming a librarian, among other great topics. Do you think you can guess which is the most checked out children’s book at San Anslemo Public Library in California?