Books published by publisher Austin Macauley

Little Rue Makes Stew is the first in a series of children's books with the author's three boys as an audience in mind. The series follows a young joey kangaroo, affectionately named Little Rue, as he grows up and experiences the world around him the same way many young children do--by playing and working with their parents, neighbors, and friends. In Little Rue Makes Stew, Little Rue, working alongside his mother, learns how to cook the family meal. Throughout the story, Little Rue washes his hands, fills the pot with water, adds vegetables, peels potatoes, and, most importantly, learns that the kitchen stove is dangerous and that it's very important to be careful.

Olives Where Are You? is an invitation to let go of what is familiar and try something different. It explores what happens when Emily decides that there is one and only one food she must have at each meal. Designed for young readers and their parents, Olives Where Are You? is a contemporary family account of a child's insistence and her parents' patient persistence. Emily rejects her parents' attempts to get her to experiment with new foods. In fact, she digs her heels in with any suggestion that she change her mind. Emily does eventually come around and accept an alternative to her beloved olives, but only through her own process of self-discovery.

Elsa Toussaint lies in bed, finding it difficult to sleep with the excitement of knowing she will be staying with her grandparents at their beachside home in Toco, Trinidad, for a month. From the time her parents drive Elsa through Toco and she sees her old friend Nora, Elsa understands that the holiday will be fun. Elsa and Nora soon re-unite, and Elsa develops a new friendship in the form of a parrot her animal-loving Aunt Lily had adopted, Simon. The trio of friends work together to save the life of a baby bird that has fallen out of the infamous mango tree, gaining another friend in the process, a Motmot bird that Elsa later names Motty. When rescuing the baby Motmot, Nora enlists the aid of one of her friends, Colin. Colin is a nice boy but still immature enough to both make fun of Elsa being deaf and the fact that he saw her underwear when she climbed the mango tree.

Deep in the heart of Frogmore, South Carolina, at a pond on the local golf course, there lives a little frog who dreams of someday becoming a famous golfer. Although his family wishes he would study harder and be more practical, the little frog just can't give up his dream. Determined to be the best, he learns the rules of golf, makes his own clubs, and creates his own course made of lily pads. Soon, his golf skills earn him the name Putter Frog. With beautiful illustrations from Warner McGee, the artist behind Dora the Explorer(R) and SpongeBob SquarePants(R), The Legend of the Putter Frog's message of hard work and determination will resonate with readers of any age, proving that belief makes all things possible.

A lonely scarecrow stands in a wheat field. A plant growing at his feet suddenly bursts into blue flowers, and out steps a beautiful little fairy girl. A wonderful friendship full of joy and laughter develops. But the flower girl disappears as the plant shrivels up in late autumn, and all alone, the scarecrow is buffeted by icy winds and snow while waiting for his friend to return in spring. Can their friendship survive the harsh reality of winter? Or would it become a figment of forgotten memory?Scarecrow & Forget-Me-Not is a heart-warming story about friendship and love. No time or distance can come between two best friends! The story is innately embedded in a natural setting, and it is told in language resonating with rhymes that will delight readers of all ages. It certainly is a heart-touching story for children, and with a lot of fun as well.

Ivy Sue Klutz (Little MisFit - LMF) finds one of her first memories confusing. This is when she is three and a half years old and is at her sister Lynn's birthday party. Their cousin, Janet, asks the partygoers to guess what Lynn's birthday present is as the truck delivering the present is backing up to the front porch of their house. Unbeknown to LMF, Janet told the other kids not to really guess that it's a bike. You guessed - LMF guesses that her sister is getting a bike for her 5th birthday present. But instead of everyone being happy that LMF guessed the right thing, everyone is mad at her and none more than her mother. LMF runs off to her soon-to-be baby brother's bedroom and tries to hide behind his dresser, with her mother hot on her heels, yelling at her all the way. From this experience and many others through her 4th grade years in school, LMF learns the Life Lesson that Life Isn't Always What It Seems.