Books with author Brock Cole

Harmless camp pranks can quickly spiral out of control, but they also provide a perfect opportunity for two social outcasts to overcome and triumph.A boy and a girl are stripped and marooned on a small island for the night. They are the "goats." The kids at camp think it's a great joke, just a harmless old tradition. But the goats don't see it that way. Instead of trying to get back to camp, they decide to call home. But no one can come and get them. So they're on their own, wandering through a small town trying to find clothing, food, and shelter, all while avoiding suspicious adults—especially the police. The boy and the girl find they rather like life on their own. If their parents ever do show up to rescue them, the boy and the girl might be long gone. . . .The Goats is a 1987 New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of the Year.

Harmless camp pranks can quickly spiral out of control, but they also provide a perfect opportunity for two social outcasts to overcome and triumph.A boy and a girl are stripped and marooned on a small island for the night. They are the "goats." The kids at camp think it's a great joke, just a harmless old tradition. But the goats don't see it that way. Instead of trying to get back to camp, they decide to call home. But no one can come and get them. So they're on their own, wandering through a small town trying to find clothing, food, and shelter, all while avoiding suspicious adults―especially the police. The boy and the girl find they rather like life on their own. If their parents ever do show up to rescue them, the boy and the girl might be long gone. . . .The Goats is a 1987 New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of the Year.

One of Horn Book's Best Picture Books of 2011When Pa brings a turkey poult home to fatten for Christmas dinner, he assures Ma that it will be no trouble since it can live in a box by the stove and eat table scraps--and just think of the money we'll save! But it's not quite so simple to raise a turkey in a tiny flat in a nineteenth-century New York City tenement. Can Pa and the children manage the willful and growing Alfred and keep the neighbors happy until Christmas? Pa finds a solution for every difficulty--until he encounters one that threatens to ruin Christmas completely. How the family joins together to solve this last difficulty makes for a very funny and satisfying holiday story.

"Once there was a giant out hoeing in his cabbages. The hoe slipped and he gave his foot a mighty wack.'Ow!' he cried. 'I must have cut off my toe.'But when he found his toe among the cabbages it had changed. It hardly looked like a toe at all.And that is just the beginning of the surprises the giant is in for. Imagine a toe that talks back, meddles in your affairs, and is responsible for the loss of your most precious possessions. The giant is furious. Yet each time he tries to get rid of the toe it reappears in an unexpected way. Only when the clever toe manages to save the day--and the giant--does their battle of wills take a turn for the better.

"Show a little maturity," he said, which I've doped out to mean: Pass all your courses, avoid detection in all crimes and misdemeanors, don't get pregnant.Celine's father has left her with these instructions. She's not too worried about the last two, but she'll fail English unless she rewrites her Catcher in the Rye essay. And she keeps being interrupted, especially by Jake, the neighbor's boy, who's been dumped on her for the weekend.An ALA Best Book for Young AdultsA School Library Journal Best Book of the YearA Booklist Best Book of the '80sA Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book of the Year

Once there was a poor girl who had no mama and no papa and nothing at all, not even a name. But then one day an Ogre comes knocking at the town’s gate, threatening to ravage the town unless the townspeople give him one of their fair maidens. Of course they pick this poor girl to be sacrificed. They dress her in a gown and a paper crown, put her in a sack, and leave her for the Ogre. But this brave and clever girl manages to outwit the Ogre and all the townspeople, too, earning a purse full of gold, a fine sharp sword, and most important, a fitting name for herself: Good-Enough-to-Eat. This satisfying story has the feel of a classic fairy tale, brought to life by Brock Cole’s expressive watercolors. Good Enough To Eat is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.