Books in Children's Collection series

Lucy’s back—and this time, her plans including saving Sherman and Sherman’s natural habitat. Lucy loves her best friend, a giant lobster named Sherman. Together they swim, splash, and blurble at their beloved beach. That is, until Lucy finds Sherman tangled and twisted in old fishing line. With a lot of persistence, a little help from Grandpa, and a big bucket, Lucy gets her friend to the local Marine Life Center. But their watery woes don’t end there. Lucy soon discovers that “Sherman’s Beach” is awash in pollution. From littered sand to trash in the sea, this problem is much larger than her crustacean companion (and he’s HUGE!). That is when playtime turns to save-the-day time. Armed with a megaphone, a few posters and—most importantly—her unwavering spunkiness, Lucy is “shore” she can fix this mess. Will her clever plans and plucky spirit be enough to turn the tide and rescue her friend’s home? Or will Sherman have to head for safer waters?

The Disappearing Staircase Mystery:The Aldens are helping restore an old estate. The house is bursting with the collections of its mysterious and eccentric former owner. As the children explore, they come across hidden rooms, secret passageways, and strange noises coming from the walls. What’s the secret of the Bugbee House? The Mystery on Blizzard Mountain: The Aldens are helping to map out a new trail on Blizzard Mountain. As they travel through the frozen wilderness, they learn that there’s treasure buried somewhere on the mountain! The children begin to search for it, but someone or something is after them. Is Blizzard Mountain haunted, or is someone after the treasure? The Mystery of the Spider's Clue: When their friend Sam gets a letter full of riddles from an eccentric millionaire, the Aldens are eager to help him crack the code. If Sam can solve the puzzle, he will inherit the millionaire’s money! But Sam isn’t the only one in town to receive a letter — and whoever solves the mystery first will win the prize!

Sheila Burnford, the author of The Incredible Journey, offers the spellbinding tale of a small dog caught up in the Second World War, and of the extraordinary life-transforming attachments he forms with the people he encounters in the course of a perilous passage from occupied France to besieged England.Nameless, Burnford’s hero first turns up as a performing dog, a poodle mix earning his keep as part of a gypsy caravan that is desperately fleeing the Nazi advance. Taken on ship by the Royal Navy, he is given the name of Ria and serves as the scruffy mascot to a boatload of sailors. Marooned in England in the midst of the Blitz, Ria rescues an old woman from the rubble of her bombed house, and finds himself unexpectedly transformed into Bel, the coiffed and pampered companion of her old age.Bel Ria is an exciting story about a compellingly real, completely believable dog. Readers of all sorts and ages will find in Bel Ria a companion to take to heart.

Bob, Son of Battle, is a sheepdog so canny and careful of his flock, so deeply devoted to his master, James Moore, and so admired for his poise and wisdom by the residents of a small village in the rugged mountains of England’s North Country, that young though he is, he is already known as Owd Bob. In a recent contest, Bob has proved himself a matchless sheepdog, and if he wins the trophy two more times, he’ll be seen as equal to the legendary sheepdogs of yore. But Bob has a real rival: Red Wull, with his docked tail and bristling yellow fur, a ferocious creature, just like his diminutive master, Adam McAdam, a lonely Scot, estranged not only from his English neighbors but from his son, David. McAdam just can’t stop belittling this strapping young man, all the more so since David began courting Moore’s beautiful daughter Maggie. But what McAdam really wants is for his beloved Wullie to wrest the prize from Bob once and for all. The story takes a darker turn when a troubling new threat to the local flocks emerges. A dog has gone rogue, sneaking out at night to feast on the flesh and blood of the sheep he is bound to protect. Again and again, new sheep fall prey to this relentless predator; again and again, he slips away undetected. This master hunter can only be among the boldest and sharpest of dogs . . . Bob, Son of Battle has long been a beloved classic of children’s literature both in America and in England. Here the celebrated author and translator Lydia Davis, who first read and loved this exciting story as a child, has rendered the challenging idioms of the original into fluent and graceful English of our day, making this tale of rival dogs and rival families and the shadowy terrain between Good and Bad accessible and appealing to readers of all ages.

Racehorse Publishing’s Quintessential Children’s Classics series is a collection of timeless children’s literature. Handsomely packaged and affordable, this new series aims to revitalize these enchanting works, and continue the tradition of sharing them with the next generation of readers.The perfect ending to a perfect day is a story. This book provides unforgettable classics for parents to tuck their children in: “Three Little Bears,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “Jack and the Beanstalk.” You can continue this wonderful tradition with your child with A Treasury of a Bedtime Stories. Featuring over thirty of these timeless tales, A Treasury of Bedtime Stories is an essential in any parent’s bedtime repertoire.This edition also include over fifty black-and-white and color illustrations, only adding to the wonder and excitement that awaits within these stories. Good or bad, Night owl or early bird, every kid needs a good story before bed—and you can’t do much better than these classics. Also, you get to revisit those stories you loved so much when you were a child. So pick up A Treasury of Bedtime Stories and share these incredible tales together—just before dozing off into dreamland.

Dino Buzzati's classic tale chronicles the terrible winter that sent the starving bears down into the valley in search of food, as well as their struggles with an army of wild boars, a wily professor who may or may not be a magician, snarling Marmoset the Cat, and, worse still, treachery within their own ranks. Over all this, the bears triumph with bravery, ingenuity, humility, and high spirits.

Black and Littlejack are bad men. Littlejack has a map that indicates the existence of a treasure on a far and lonely island. He needs a ship to get there. Black has a ship. So they team up and sail off on Black’s vessel, the Aeiu. “A weird uncanny name,” remarks Littlejack, “like a nightbird screaming.” Black explains that it’s all the vowels except for O. O he hates since his mother got wedged in a porthole. They couldn’t pull her in so they had to push her out.Black and Littlejack arrive at the port of the far and lonely island and demand the treasure. No one knows anything about it, so they have their henchmen ransack the place—to no avail. But Black has a better idea: he will take over the island and he will purge it of O.The vicissitudes visited on the islanders by Black and Littlejack, the harsh limits of a life sans O (where shoe is she and woe is we), and how finally with a little luck and lots of pluck the islanders shake off their tyrannical interlopers and discover the true treasure for themselves (Oh yes—and get back their O’s)—these are only some of the surprises that await readers of James Thurber’s timelessly zany fairy tale about two louts who try to lock up the language—and lose.

A Carnegie Medal Honor BookTwelve-year-old Smith is a denizen of the mean streets of eighteenth-century London, living hand to mouth by virtue of wit and pluck. One day he trails an old gentleman with a bulging pocket, deftly picks it, and as footsteps ring out from the alley by which he had planned to make his escape, finds himself in a tough spot. Taking refuge in a doorway, he sees two men emerge to murder the man who was his mark. They rifle the dead man’s pockets and finding them empty, depart in a rage. Smith, terrified, flees the scene of the crime. What has he stolen that is worth the life of a man?Smith is a gripping, engrossing, and utterly diverting tale of high adventure related by a writer whose scintillating style is matched only by the dazzle of his plotting. In the words of Lloyd Alexander, “Garfield is unmatched for sheer exciting storytelling. The reader simply can’t stop reading him.”

Though one of the best-known books in the world, Pinocchio at the same time remains unknown—linked in many minds to the Walt Disney movie that bears little relation to Carlo Collodi’s splendid original. That story is of course about a puppet who, after many trials, succeeds in becoming a “real boy.” Yet it is hardly a sentimental or morally improving tale. To the contrary, Pinocchio is one of the great subversives of the written page, a madcap genius hurtled along at the pleasure and mercy of his desires, a renegade who in many ways resembles his near contemporary Huck Finn. Pinocchio the novel, no less than Pinocchio the character, is one of the great inventions of modern literature. A sublime anomaly, the book merges the traditions of the picaresque, of street theater, and of folk and fairy tales into a work that is at once adventure, satire, and a powerful enchantment that anticipates surrealism and magical realism. Thronged with memorable characters and composed with the fluid but inevitable logic of a dream, Pinocchio is an endlessly fascinating work that is essential equipment for life. Geoffrey Brock’s acclaimed new translation is reissued in an edition for children with over fifty full-page watercolors by Fulvio Testa.

A wonderful holiday story about a small bird named Arthur, who lives in New York City.After a fine, green summer in Central Park, all the birds are preparing to fly south. Except for Arthur, that is. Arthur is off playing, gazing into a lake, dreaming of wider seas. And so Arthur is left behind. It begins to get cold. The trees are losing their leaves. Arthur feels uneasy and lonely, especially after his nest is scattered to the winds. Arthur must find a new home, and after he does—he settles down in a statue’s open book—he discovers a new city, where he can play hide-and-seek in the steam from a manhole cover and feast with the pigeons on crumbs, and which soon brings other delightful surprises (and challenges): icicles, a great big sweet-smelling evergreen tree that is all lit up with people gathered around it to sing “Gloria” in the cold night, and snow—a whole winter wonderland! And then the trees begin to bud; the birds come back.... With Arthur as their guide through the city, children will find new poetry and beauty on every corner.