Books in Tilbury House Nature Books series

AWARDS: *Moonbeam Silver*, *John Burroughs Association Riverby 2016 Award* Estuaries form where river meets sea and fresh water mixes with salt. Teeming with life, these places of salt marshes, mudflats, and tidal backwaters serve as nursery areas for oceangoing fish, migratory stopovers for shorebirds, and homes for an amazing diversity of snails, bivalves, fish, mammals, horseshoe crabs, fiddler and blue crabs, terrapin turtles, plankton, and many others, all of whom we meet in the pages of this delightful book.Narrated in the poetic voice of the estuary itself, and accompanied by natural-history sidebars about estuary plants, animals, and cycles, THE SECRET BAY is another topnotch nature book from the author and illustrator of the award-winning, bestselling The Secret Pool.A stand-alone book and a stunning companion volume to Ridley and Raye’s award-winning Secret Pool.Ridley deftly augments the estuary’s lyrical narrative voice with sidebars about the plants, animals, and natural processes of an estuary.Raye’s gorgeous watercolors reveal new features and hidden treats with each reading.Back matter includes The Estuary Food Web, Great Escapes (how estuary animals avoid predators), and an author’s note about the challenges facing estuaries.A perfect book for the budding naturalist and for his or her parents and teachers.Fountas & Pinnell Level SLexile 1180 Color Throughout

CCBC Choice Book 2018 : The Annual Best of the Year List of the Cooperative Children's Book CenterThis is my busy green garden. There’s a surprise In clever disguise, That hangs in my busy green garden. This is a ladybug dawdling so, Near the surprise, in clever disguise, That hangs in my busy green garden. This is a honeybee buzzing below The red spotted ladybug dawdling so, Near the surprise, in clever disguise, That hangs in my busy green garden.So begins this lyrical tribute to the bugs, bees, and birds that make the garden such a busy place. With each turned page, more visitors appear, and all the while the “surprise”―a chrysalis―changes unnoticed until, on the last page, a butterfly emerges and flies away across the garden’s well-tended borders. Back-of-book notes about the natural histories of the garden’s denizens complete this lovely and lively portrait of backyard nature, which is also a gentle meditation on the rewards of paying attention. A chipmunk hides on every page to divert and engage young readers.Fountas & Pinnell Level O Color throughout

Are you ready to snuggle down for the night in your very own bed? This bushy-tailed gray squirrel is ready for bed, but he's wondering where he will sleep tonight.When dusk comes, gray squirrel needs to find somewhere safe to sleep. He finds a cozy den, but a big black bear is already sleeping there. On his way up a tree, he sees a family of bats, but sleeping upside makes his head ache. Everywhere he looks, he finds another animal has already had the same idea!Rebekah Raye's wonderful watercolor paintings take us along on the gray squirrel's search for the very best bed as the moon rises higher in the night sky. This charming tale of persistence is now augmented with four new pages of back matter about the animals that squirrel encounters.First time in paperback for this Tilbury House Classic.A charming read-aloud for bedtime or anytime.Includes additional information about each animal in the story.For animal lovers of all ages. Fountas & Pinnell Level M Color throughout

2018 Green Earth Book Award FinalistLionel lives in a Paris apartment building but loves keeping bees with his Aunt Celine at her farm outside the city. But when her bees start dying, how can he help? The solution, he realizes, is in the rooftop gardens and window boxes of his apartment neighbors, representing a varied and continuously blooming array of flowers that the bees will love. Aunt Celine must bring her bees to Paris! But first he and his friends Alice and Samir must convince their skeptical neighbors and landlord, Mr. Dubi, that this is a good idea. Adorned with Parisian skylines, Bees in the City is a love letter to the City of Light and a celebration of the can-do spirit of kids. Sarah McMenemy’s illustrations recall the Parisian magic of Madeleine. The book’s backmatter explores urban beekeeping and rooftop gardening in greater depth. Fountas & Pinnell Level P full color

The bedtime book about endangered speciesWhen Mother Earth bids goodnight, / the world is bathed in silver light. / She says, “Goodnight, my precious ones.” / Nature’s song has just begun. Mother Earth’s Lullaby is a gentle bedtime call to some of the world’s most endangered animals. Rhythm, rhyme, and repetition create a quiet moment for children burrowing down in their own beds for the night, imparting a sense that even the most endangered animals feel safe at this peaceful time of day. In successive spreads, a baby giant panda, yellow-footed rock wallaby, California condor, Ariel toucan, American red wolf, Sumatran tiger, polar bear, Javan rhinoceros, Vaquita dolphin, Northern spotted owl, Hawaiian goose, and Key deer are snuggled to sleep by attentive parents in their dens and nests under the moon and stars.Brief descriptions of each animal appear in the back of the book. Color throughout

To author Stephie Morton, nature's powerful forces are a metaphor for the hardships faced by displaced children. Kids, like seeds, thrive when given a chance.Each of the three seeds in this story―a cherry seed in the Middle East, an acacia seed in Australia, and a lotus seed in Asia―survives a difficult journey through flood, fire, or drought, then sprouts (in the case of the lotus seed, a hundred years later) and flourishes.Stephie's verses and Nicole Wong's art make a picture book to treasure. full color

A lyrical narrative voice (the voice of the Milky Way galaxy itself) is augmented by sidebars filled with amazing facts and insights about our galaxy, and by extension, our universe.Inspired by Tilbury House’s award-winning, Kirkus-starred book The Secret Pool (2013).A lyrical narrative voice (the voice of the Milky Way galaxy itself) is augmented by sidebars filled with amazing facts and insights about our galaxy, and by extension, our universe.Features Mike Taylor’s extraordinary night sky photography and breathtaking NASA images of the births and deaths of stars and galaxies.Combines a read-aloud bedtime story with accessible, scientifically accurate sidebar features.The perfect book for a budding stargazer or astronomer.The Tilbury House Nature Book series brings the natural world to life for young readers. Each book aims for the highest standards of scientific accuracy and storytelling magic. color photography

* Ten Best Illustrated Books, Parenting Magazine ** An ALA Notable Book *Nature and letters come together in this enchanting classic about the mighty caribou, one of the great symbols of the arctic wilderness. It's a counting book too--follow the number of hoof prints through the letters of the alphabet.Also included are a compendium of caribou facts and a new afterword about caribou in the twenty-first century. Journey into the magical world of the caribou, North America s own reindeer.A Tilbury House classic with 30,000 copies soldExpanded paperback edition includes a haunting new afterword by biologist Mark McCollough, describing the condition of the great arctic caribou herds in the age of climate change.Both an alphabet book and a child's nature book. Color throughout

AWARDS: *Moonbeam Silver*, *John Burroughs Association Riverby 2016 Award* Estuaries form where river meets sea and fresh water mixes with salt. Teeming with life, these places of salt marshes, mudflats, and tidal backwaters serve as nursery areas for oceangoing fish, migratory stopovers for shorebirds, and homes for an amazing diversity of snails, bivalves, fish, mammals, horseshoe crabs, fiddler and blue crabs, terrapin turtles, plankton, and many others, all of whom we meet in the pages of this delightful book.Narrated in the poetic voice of the estuary itself, and accompanied by natural-history sidebars about estuary plants, animals, and cycles, THE SECRET BAY is another topnotch nature book from the author and illustrator of the award-winning, bestselling The Secret Pool.A stand-alone book and a stunning companion volume to Ridley and Raye’s award-winning Secret Pool.Ridley deftly augments the estuary’s lyrical narrative voice with sidebars about the plants, animals, and natural processes of an estuary.Raye’s gorgeous watercolors reveal new features and hidden treats with each reading.Back matter includes The Estuary Food Web, Great Escapes (how estuary animals avoid predators), and an author’s note about the challenges facing estuaries.A perfect book for the budding naturalist and for his or her parents and teachers.Fountas & Pinnell Level SLexile 1180 Color Throughout

*Selected to the Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 for 2017 list, a cooperative project of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Children’s Book Council**Selected by Chicago Public Library Best Informational Books for Younger Readers of 2016*Wombat poos are box-shaped to stay where they're deposited and serve as messages to other animals. Baby golden tortoise beetles pile poop on their backs to create a shield as protection from predators. Silver-spotted skipper caterpillars can shoot their poops 40 times their own body length to conceal their true locations. Baby hoopoes squirt their poops into the eyes of attackers -- and who wants feces in their faces? Baby Ozark blind cave salamanders use gray bat guano for food.The bottom (!!) line: Ever-inventive nature finds a thousand uses for poop. Nothing goes to waste (!!). This book is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser with a lot of information to share.

What can the rocks in old stone walls tell us about how the earth's crust was shaped, melted by volcanoes, carved by glaciers, and worn by weather? And what can they tell us about earlier people on the land and the first settlers? As Adam and his grandfather work together to repair the family farm's old stone walls, Adam learns how fascinating geology can be, and how the everyday landscape provides intriguing clues to the past. Stone Wall Secrets also shows positive family dynamics between different generations and different races in an adoptive family. Gus Moore's richly detailed paintings are the perfect complement to a story full of imagery and wonder. Color throughout

Illustrated with spectacular paintings, Swimming Home tells the compelling story of a school of alewives (river herring) as they return to their natal lake to spawn. But a newly built culvert blocks their way. Will this be the end of their journey?An epic animal migration story in the tradition of March of the Penguins.The story follows a school of fish (river herring, or alewives) on a journey of hundreds of miles, escaping porpoises, seals, eagles, and herons.Swimming Home is also the moving story of a boy and his father who see the fish stopped just short of their goal by a new road, and transport them across the last hundred feet.The Tilbury House Nature Book series brings the natural world to life for young readers without anthropomorphizing animals. Each book aims for the highest standards of scientific accuracy and storytelling magic.