Books published by publisher D.R. Godine

The timeless circle game 'The Farmer in the Dell' is one of the first that American children learn to play, and its happy, lilting song is among the first they learn to sing. Here the celebrated picture-book artist Ilse Plume has imagined a fresh and very American setting for the lyrics. Ms. Plume's colored-pencil drawings are inspired by the folk art and decorative motifs of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Included are a musical transcription, lyrics, and directions for playing the game. This book is now available for the first time in softcover.

For Mr B it was love at first sight: when he saw the tiny donkey being abused by its owner, he knew he had to come to her rescue. He called her Pavlova (on account of her long legs) and knew that their destinies were now entwined. There was no way his film crew was going to fly them both back to London, so Mr B quite sensibly decides that they will travel overland-and what a trip it runs out to be! He leaves his film crew in Pakistan and embarks on a journey, donkey in tow, across Iran, through Turkey, into Germany and France to bring her home to suburban London. Enroute, they encounter drug smugglers, carpet salesmen and hosts of every variety, until they finally hitch a lift from Hector, an aristocratic Brit who drives a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, in which the two eccentric Englishmen successfully smuggle Pavlova across The Channel.

Of all of Longfellow's beloved poems (and there are many) none is so personal, so sunny, or so touching as this affectionate love letter to his three daughters, "grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, and Edith with the golden hair."Longfellow's happiest hours were spent writing on a cluttered desk by the south window of his beloved Craigie House, an imposing mansion still preserved on Cambridge's famous Brattle Street. It was here that most of the action takes place (except for his literary reference, and brief excursion, to the "Mouse-Tower on the Rhine"), here that his daughters come creeping down the stairs to beard the gentle, genial poet in his lair.Lang's luminous illustrations perfectly capture the happy atmosphere of that house, the author's affections for his daughters, and the painterly quality of his verse. This book for young readers presents one of the sweetest poems in the English language, her newly illustrated, beautifully presented, and now available to a new generation of readers.

Living in a "home hand-built" on the Alaskan coast, the man who "trades with the sea" combs the silent dawn beaches each morning for driftwood and cast-off items. For this quiet man, each find has its own story, its own past and dignity. Every day after gathering his treasure - and leaving behind those gifts "that are best never held" - he returns home where he carves a small figure from the driftwood, a gift for the sea. This beautiful - and beautifully illustrated - story is a quiet hymn celebrating man and nature in harmony. Children and ecology-minded adults alike will find much to enjoy in Shannon's spare text and Azarian's elegant woodcut art.

This playful alphabet, lush with surprising details and limned in delicate colors, was inspired by that familiar and beloved nursery companion the alphabet block. As reimagined by artist Judy Pelikan, each letter of the alphabet takes possession of its own face, covering, carving, painting, and manipulating the surface of the block in a variety of inventive and unexpected ways.Pelikan approaches humble wooden cubes as points of entry into a magical world, one of surprising objects, exotic animals, intimate landscapes, and delicate balances. Every face is decorated with images related to its letter: the Painter's Pointillist block introduces a Pitcher and Pearls and one-Point Perspective, while a Tolstoy Tome straightens a Teetering Tea Table (set with a complete, and minute, Tea service). And some are not quite blocks at all: a Folded strip of Film follows sandy Footprints past a Friend's cowrie shell while a quartet of Jaunty Jacks squares up to form a miniature house of cards. Each page offers up its own intriguing and challenging little world, a combination of the best of Kate Greenaway's color and form and M.C. Escher's mystery and visual disconnects.On the verso, facing each block, is the upper and lower case letter, redrawn after the forms of Paul Renner's simple, modern Futura typeface, elegant counterpoints to the fascinating, minutely detailed pencil-and-watercolor illustrations. This is small enough for a child to handle, and sophisticated enough for an adult to appreciate. It is a little bijou of a book.