Books with author Jim Donaldson

You're never too young to meet a Gruffalo! Turn the satisfyingly chunky board pages and look through the peep-holes to meet all your favourite characters from the deep dark wood.Perfect for tiny Gruffalo fans, Say Hello to the Gruffalo is part of a charming range of books specially created for babies featuring Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's iconic creation, the Gruffalo. Designed to appeal to even the youngest child, simple patterns and bright colours combine with Axel Scheffler's instantly recognizable artwork to keep babies entertained for hours.Also available in the Gruffalo Baby series: Gruffalo, What Can You Hear?.

The Rhyming Rabbit loves to make up entertaining poems, inspired by everything he sees, but the other rabbits don’t appreciate his talent for rhyme. Sad and lonely, the Rhyming Rabbit sets off one starry night all on his own – will he ever find someone to share his poems with?The Rhyming Rabbit is a clever rhyming adventure from the stellar picture book partnership of Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks, creators of What the Ladybird Heard. With brilliant rhyming verse, bright and distinctive illustrations and a gorgeously glittery cover, this story is a delight to read aloud.Enjoy all the stories from Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks: Sharing a Shell, The Princess and the Wizard, The Rhyming Rabbit, The Singing Mermaid, Sugarlump and the Unicorn, Princess Mirror-Belle and the Dragon Pox, What the Ladybird Heard, What the Ladybird Heard Next, What the Ladybird Heard on Holiday and The Girl, the Bear and the Magic Shoes.

The story of the adorable dragon with a heart of gold is now available as a gift edition board book!What do dragons learn at Madam Dragon's school?How to fly . . . How to roar . . . How to breathe fire!Zog is the most eager student in the class, but he's also the most accident prone. With each test (and each bump, bruise, or scrape), his dream of earning a gold star seems further away than ever.But a mysterious girl keeps coming to his rescue. And when Zog faces his toughest test yet, she may be just the person to help Zog win classroom glory!

Plan a wonderful, witchy party with The Room on the Broom Party Book, perfect for themed birthday and Halloween parties!Based on the bestselling picture book, Room on the Broom, by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, The Room on the Broom Party Book is filled with lots of magical games and activities such as a witch's treasure hunt, broomstick games, magic bog slime and more! Also included are invitations and spooky decorations, recipes for tasty party food, and instructions for making your very own witch's cauldron piñata – plus the Room on the Broom Song, jokes and over 200 stickers.

A glittering magical adventure about a girl, a bear and some very special shoes from the bestselling creators of What the Ladybird Heard and Sugarlump and the Unicorn . When Josephine leaves the shoe shop after buying some new running shoes, she hears an unusual sound - Click-click! Click-click! A bear with a backpack is following her! Luckily for Josephine, her new shoes are anything but ordinary - these are magic shoes. But can they help her escape the bear when there's a mountain, a bog and even a lake in her way? The Girl, the Bear and the Magic Shoes is an exciting adventure from the stellar picture-book partnership of Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks, creators of What the Ladybird Heard . Written in fast-paced, engaging prose that's full of action and imagination, and with a delightfully unexpected ending, this gorgeously glittery book is one to enjoy over and over again. Enjoy all the stories from Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks: Sharing a Shell, The Princess and the Wizard, The Rhyming Rabbit, The Singing Mermaid, Sugarlump and the Unicorn, Princess Mirror-Belle and the Dragon Pox, What the Ladybird Heard, What the Ladybird Heard Next and What the Ladybird Heard on Holiday .

While some may think that handwriting is archaic skill in a keyboard world, researchers have learned that teaching children penmanship benefits brain development and enhances their ability to think.“When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,” said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris. “There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain.” https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.htmlWhat most Americans do not know is that the handwriting they learned was created by a ten-year boy who lived at the edge of the Northwest Territory.In 1810, Platt Rogers Spencer eyed the angle of the rolling waves of Lake Erie and the oval pebbles scattered across the strand. With a quill, Spencer transferred these common shapes found in nature into a new style of penmanship. Instead of only moving his wrist as Spencer wrote, he employed his shoulder muscles to move the quill. The young penman created a uniquely American form of handwriting that would reflect the vibrant spirit of his nascent country, and for the rest of his life, Spencer promoted the script that bore his name. The Father of American Penmanship published the first copy books that featured his script so that school teachers didn’t need to prepare small paper slips with examples of letters for their students to replicate. Spencer’s books were the most commonly used in American schools. Believing in practical education, he founded the first business college in Pittsburgh, PA and also enrolled women in his Log Cabin Seminary so that they could train to become clerks.When not teaching Spencer also wrote and published poetry. A reformed alcoholic, he lectured on behave of the Temperance Movement and promoted the end of slavery. His artistic mind also envisioned how to utilize the shapes from his letters to create “off-hand flourishing”, a pen and ink folk art that creates graceful birds, cartouches and sometimes leaping stags. After his death, Spencer’s children continued to teach his script, publish new editions of his curriculum, and kept his legacy alive.“We never give much thought to handwriting these days, especially as the ubiquitous keyboard has lessened the call for it and fewer children are taught penmanship. But in nineteenth century America, Platt Rogers Spencer developed a curriculum for legible handwriting that schools adopted. The Spencerian style, as it came to be known, provided an essential uniformity in communication. The story of the man, his method, and widespread influence he had in helping Americans make their written thoughts understood is neatly told in Platt Rogers Spencer. In the era before typewriters and computers, handwriting mattered and Joan Donaldson’s Kindle Single will provide deserved attention to Spencer’s achievement.”—James McGrath Morris, author of Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power.