Books published by publisher David R Godine

Friendship, resourcefulness, adventures! Here’s the classic tale of two families of children who band together against a common foe: an uncle who claims he’s too busy for his nieces.The Walker children (John, Susan, Titty and Roger) are on school holiday in the Lake District and are sailing a borrowed catboat named “Swallow,” when they meet the Blackett children (Nancy and Peggy), who sail the boat, “Amazon.” The children camp together on Wild Cat Island where a plot is hatched against the Blackett’s Uncle Jim who is too busy writing his memoirs to be disturbed. Fireworks—literally—ensue along with a dangerous contest, a run-in with houseboat burglars, and the theft of Uncle Jim’s manuscript. How all this is resolved makes for an exciting and very satisfying story. Uncle Jim ends up apologizing for missing his nieces’ adventures all summer—thankfully, readers won’t miss a thing. Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series has stood the test of time. More than just great stories, each one celebrates independence and initiative with a colorful, large cast of characters. Like the entire series that follows, this book is for children or grownups, anyone captivated by a world of adventure and imagination, exploring and setting sail.

On the first day of ChristmasMy true love gave to meA partridge in a pear tree.So begins one of the best-loved songs of the yuletide season. Its verses celebrate the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany, when the three Magi presented the baby Jesus with gold, frankincense, and myrrh - the very first Christmas gifts.Drawing inspiration from centuries-old illuminated manuscripts, Caldecott honor-medalist Ilse Plume here creates an Italian Renaissance setting for the lyrics of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Twice a resident of Florence, her soul "forever touched by the rays of Tuscan sunlight," she has pored over numerous books of hours, bestiaries, and miniatures in search of imagery that might "convey the atmosphere, both tangible and intangible, of a particular time and place": a Florentine garden of the late fifteenth century. Plume's exquisite images, created in gouache and colored pencil, are rich in royal purple and gold, glowing vermilion and verdant green. In each, a beautiful, shy, young noblewoman with magnificent yellow tresses graciously receives a gift from her handsome Romeo: a brown partridge in a fruit-laden tree, two turtledoves in a golden cage ... and, finally, twelve lords a-leaping, in the form of twelve ornamental figures for the lady's Christmas tree.Plume writes in an artist's note that "I hope that the reader, in turning the pages of my book, will feel the sense of tranquility that he or she would have felt wandering through a Renaissance garden." Many readers will feel exactly that as they lose themselves in this quietly brilliant gem of bookmaking, a gift book that celebrates the joys of gift-giving.Includes sheet music and lyrics for the home musician.

Andrea Wisnewski makes the story of Little Red Riding Hood fresh and new in this ingeniously designed retelling. She has set her tale in the rural New England of the early nineteenth century, basing her interiors, architecture, and costumes on models found at Old Sturbridge Village, the living-history museum in western Massachusetts. The images, full of lovingly rendered period detail, are done in a medium Wisnewski has made her own: black-and-white prints made from intricate papercut designs (the results look much like woodcuts) that are then hand painted in gloriously vivid watercolor. This is surely to become the favorite American retelling of this classic tale from Grimm, the one about a stout-hearted little girl and the crafty, hungry wolf.

The uproarious true adventures of a dog who doesn’t understand that he’s a dog — and the boy who loved him. Funny, heartwarming, and true, this is a classic story of a very imaginative kid and one very unusual dog.Funny and poignant, The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be is a lively portrait of an unorthodox childhood and an unforgettable friendship. Growing up in on the frontier of Saskatoon, Canada, the legendary adventurer and naturalist, Farley Mowat, received a gift from his mom: a dog she bought for four cents. Farley quickly named him “Mutt.”Mutt displayed skills at hunting and retrieving that were either pure genius or just plain crazy — once going so far as to retrieve a plucked and trussed ruffed grouse from the grocer. Mutt also loved riding passenger in an open car wearing goggles and climbing both trees and ladders — the perfect companion for a child with a love for animals and misadventures.Originally published for young people, this is a memoir by the author Never Cry Wolf that will delight dog lovers of all ages.

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.

It is a long time ago in a village near Germany's Black Forest, and Erich, a foundling, has been left in the care of the good and charitable Frau Goddhart. Or, at least the publicly good and charitable Frau Goddhart; at home it's quite another story. Erich's young life of work and little love changes when old Ula, the town's most skillful clockmaker, offers him a job as his helper. Ula is patient and very slow worker, which is why his cuckoo clocks are the best anywhere. Ula teaches Erich about clockmaking, playing the fiddle, and many other useful and wonderful things.One day as Ula works at his clockmaking and Erich looks one, Baron Balloon storms in demanding a clock. Ula refuses, and decided right then and there to make a clock for himself, a wondrous, beautiful clock that will be his last and best. The clock he makes - with Erich's help - is wonderful, beautiful, and magical, with a cheerful enchanted cuckoo bird that knows all the thirty-six songs of the birds of the Black Forest. Mary Stolz's story is alive with magic of art and creation and is sure to enchant, as are the warm pencil illustrations of Pamela Johnson.

The prose of Joan Aiken, her uncanny ability to tell a great story in language that is classically beautiful, her fascinating characters, riveting dialogue, and compelling action, should be better appreciated. Like her father, Conrad Aiken, she is adept at a number of forms but is a master of the short story. In this fetching collection of what she herself considers thirteen of her best tales, she can be scary (everyone knows her fascination with wolves and witches) and poetic (as in "Moonshine in the Mustard Pot" or "The Lilac in the Lake"). But whatever she sets her hand to, it reads like the work of a master. And set against the lovely and luminous pencil drawings of Pamela Johnson, we have a a baker's dozen of magical tales that will stay with readers long after the last page is turned and the lights turned out.

Here the celebrated picture-book artist Ilse Plume has imagined a fresh and very American setting for the lyrics a farmstead in the Pennsylvania Dutch country. A young Amish farmer takes a wife, the beautiful wife takes a child, the child takes a nurse, the nurse takes a dog, and with each successive verse the seasons turn, the farmer grows older, and his farm grows more prosperous, more lively, more richly populated. Ms. Plume's colored-pencil drawings are inspired by the folk art and decorative motifs of the Pennsylvania Dutch. They are as comforting as a star-patterned quilt, and as sweet, warm, and delightful as a homemade apple pie. Includes sheet music, lyrics, and directions for playing the game.

This lovely retelling of one of the lesser known tales of the Saint Francis's lessons centers on the legend of the great wolf of Gubbio, a ferocious canine who terrorized the town and was slowly reducing it to penury and starvation. In nearby Assisi, Brother Francis heard of their plight and came to their rescue. Unbelievingly, the villagers watched from the ramparts as Brother Francis called to the wolf, tamed it with his tenderness, and made it pledge that if the people of Gubbio would care for it, he would do them no harm. He took the pledge and lived in harmony with the citizens of the city until his death.