Books with author Brock Cole

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.

Brock Cole's first picture book in nearly ten yearsOnce there was an old man who ate so much his britches burst and his buttons popped one, two, three, into the fire. "Wife! Wife!" he cried. "We are undone! My britches have burst and my buttons are burnt, every one!After putting her husband to bed, the wife enlists the aid of her three daughters in replacing their father's buttons. The eldest promises to find a rich man who will give her buttons in exchange for her hand in marriage. The second daughter decides to join the army for the sake of the buttons on a soldier's uniform. And the youngest is going to run through the meadows with her apron held out before her, hoping to catch a few buttons falling from the sky. Which of these young ladies will succeed in restoring the family fortunes? The answer is the essential and satisfying stuff of fairy tales. Brock Cole's whimsical prose and pictures make this original story feel like a hundred-year-old classic.

Another orginal picture-book fairy taleLarky Mavis, an eccentric soul, finds three peanuts in the middle of the road. The first tastes like liver and onions. The second, like bread pudding. And the third -- well, inside the third is a baby. Larky Mavis decides to name it Heart's Delight and to take care of it. She shows it to the teacher, and he says it looks like a worm. She asks the parson to christen it, but he thinks it's a mouse. And when she asks the doctor to help her teach the baby to say "Ma," he thinks it's a deformed bird. And indeed, Heart's Delight has sprouted wings. As Mavis's charge grows and grows, readers will recognize that Heart's Delight is something akin to an angel, and the townspeople also realize that it is something special, but they want to take it away. And as much as Larky Mavis tries to protect Heart's Delight, it is the peanut-shell baby who turns out to be Mavis's savior in the end. This unusual tale is illustrated by the author in lively watercolors.

The woman policeman says why don't you come in here, and so I went. It was a little room with a table and some chairs. That was all. Instead of a window, there was a big mirror. I wouldn't look at that. I didn't want to see myself. I sat down and folded my hands. There was still blood under my nails, so after a minute I put them under the table . . .-From the bookThis is the story of how thirteen-year-old Linda came to be involved in the murder of one man and the suicide of another. The police and her social worker think they know the answer, but they've got it wrong. Here Linda tells her own story. She sees her world and what has happened to her with compelling clarity. Her voice is direct, cool, and ruthlessly honest. She'll persuade you that she is neither victim nor fool - that the facts speak for themselves in this National Book Award Finalist.Like Howie and Laura in The Goats and Celine in Celine, Linda is a character who will captivate you from the first word. This is a life you will never forget.

"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

Brock Cole's first picture book in nearly ten yearsOnce there was an old man who ate so much his britches burst and his buttons popped one, two, three, into the fire. "Wife! Wife!" he cried. "We are undone! My britches have burst and my buttons are burnt, every one!After putting her husband to bed, the wife enlists the aid of her three daughters in replacing their father's buttons. The eldest promises to find a rich man who will give her buttons in exchange for her hand in marriage. The second daughter decides to join the army for the sake of the buttons on a soldier's uniform. And the youngest is going to run through the meadows with her apron held out before her, hoping to catch a few buttons falling from the sky. Which of these young ladies will succeed in restoring the family fortunes? The answer is the essential and satisfying stuff of fairy tales. Brock Cole's whimsical prose and pictures make this original story feel like a hundred-year-old classic.