Books published by publisher David Goodin

n her haunting and exquisite first novel, Marly Youmans brings us to a town on the banks of the Little Jordan River, where in the span of a summer season an entire lifetime of experience and sensations unfolds.Told from the perspective of Meg, a precocious thirteen-year-old who is part nymph, part young woman, Little Jordan recounts a series of unusual events a death, an attempted suicide, a mother's disastrous affair, a young girl's first kiss - that resonate, and finally coalesce, in the reader's mind.Marly Youmans conveys with elegance and economy the unpredictable tragedies and subtle oddities that hover above a small Southern town one special summer. As you tumble through the smells and sounds of the season mown hay, wet grass, a search party's flashlights scanning a dark field you come to realize that this could be your town, an otherwise ordinary town, but one that harbors deep secrets for even the ordinary teems underneath with strange happenings.

It's the long awaited first day of school, and here, in rhyme and pictures, is the story of two young rabbits setting off to Rabbit School. Deep in the woods, they find their beloved old schoolteacher, who teaches them everything a good rabbit must know: which vegetables and plants are tastiest; how to make the garden grow; and how to paint Easter eggs in bright colors so the rabbits may call themselves Easter bunnies with pride! He also teaches them how to stay fit and to run fast to avoid the dangerous red fox who lurks in the forest. This classic picture book by the legendary German children's book author, Albert Sixtus with lovingly detailed pictures by illustrator Fritz Koch- Gotha, is here translated into English for the first time. Delightful in its lilting verse and period drawings, it will appeal to early readers of age five and up and also to parents looking for a classic read-aloud.

The religious sect known as Shakers, who at their height (ca. 1825) probably only numbered around 4000, has always exerted a profound influence on the American imagination. Perhaps it was their simplicity, or their celibacy, or their strict rules for communal living, but while other utopian communities have long since been forgotten, the Shakers live on. Founded by Mother Ann Lee in the eighteenth century, they soon had active communities throughout the Midwest and as far south as Kentucky. Dedicated to serving God, they lived simple, agrarian lives in harmony with the changing seasons, content with what they could provide with their own hands and labor. Although living communities have all but disappeared, their influence survives - in everything from the clothes pin to the seed packet.Their spare motto, "Hands to Work, Hearts to God" is repeated like a mantra in the charming rhymed text by Ann Turner. Coupled with the chaste, sensitive, almost elegiac paintings by artist Wendell Minor, this lovely paperback reprint of the hardcover original brings back the virtues of hard work, simple needs, rural living, and an admirable religious order we would do well to contemplate.

Wilhelm Hauff was a story-teller in the great European mythic tradition. His short stories, peopled with a vivid assortment of dwarves, evil witches, enchanted swans, and devious princes, owe a clear debt to the Brothers Grimm. But rather than rehashing old tales, Hauff created a realm far more exotic than the Grimms' Black Forest, a place where the morals are less than clear-cut and where characters must rely on wits as much as magic spells to solve their predicaments. One collection (probably his best known volume), Little Mook, provides the two tales for our new Pocket Paragon: "The History of Little Mook" and "Dwarf Longnose.""Little Mook" features a gnomish, innocent orphan whose parents never thought he would amount to much and refused him even the most basic education. Friendless and alone, the naïve Little Mook is stripped of his inheritance and cast out into a hostile world. Blessed with an enterprising nature and outfitted with a pair of magic slippers, he still manages to outwit a cabal of treacherous courtiers and make his fortune."Dwarf Longnose" stars a clever little boy enslaved by a cruel witch's curse. Freed from servitude but transformed into a hideous dwarf with a huge proboscis, he returns to parents who no longer recognize him. Luckily his culinary skills put him in good standing with the local Duke, and his good nature and generous heart restore him (with a little help from some magic herbs and an enchanted goose) to his family.Both stories are decorated with the glowing, gemlike tempera paintings of Boris Pak, a Russian artist whose ornate, whimsical style perfectly captures the romance and humor of these two extraordinary fables. His paintings, smuggled out of Communist Russia, are the first of his works to be published in the U.S. and they're reproduced here in glorious color.