Books published by publisher Down East Books

It’s Christmas at the cottage by the lake and the bears are busy preparing to celebrate. The human owners of the cottage, however, are in the city feeling glum. Until the idea comes to them to spend the holidays at their cottage. What follows is a set of misadventures as the family arrives without presents—they were left on the train—and without the usual holiday accouterments—the Christmas trees and turkeys are all sold out. But they are in for a treat as the cottage has been decorated by their unseen friends. So the bears unwittingly save Christmas for their human hosts, yet are still able to enjoy their own fine celebration. And, as with the other books, the bears do so all while cleverly avoiding confrontation with their human friends.

A young boy scatters golden kernels of corn to feed the birds of the barnyard, and watches in delight as the birds of the farm parade before him to get to their meal. From fat speckled hens, to drakes with black velvet heads, even his runaway white rabbits, they all join the feasting throng. The little calico cat watches the birds with hunger and fierce longing, but she knows the birds are off limits. The shifty brown rats she spies, however, are fair game!

Why does everyone keep telling Lily that many hands make the basket? Didn't she make the basket with her very own hands? It is the most beautiful basket of her 10-year-old life and no one will give her the credit she deserves. In the end, she learns a valuable lesson about pride and the spirit of community. Into the story is woven the process of basket making and a Wabanaki animal legend, as well as some words of the Penobscot language.

No child can walk through a puddle of mud without a gigantic smile, and while the stuff might be the spring-time bane of grownups, children just love mud. Muddy Boots targets kids and families who value outdoor exploration and grandparents who long for their grandchildren to have the same unfettered time in nature as they did. The book features a wide range of hands-on activities for kids, including mud play, forts, animal tracking and forest wisdom, foraging, insects and worms, bird watching and bird feeding, and many small things for kids to make. Although not primarily about mud, the activities do encourage all hands to get dirty as they explore the world around them.

Maine has a rich supernatural history and ghost stories from the state are as varied as they are prolific. Freelance writer and reporter Tom Verde first became interested in such eerie occurrences while researching first-hand encounters with ghosts for a series of public radio programs. This book recounts some of the spine-tingling tales he uncovered in his research, including:•The dagger-wielding shade who terrorized a Portland couple•The murdered Indian who revisited Means’s Tavern•Famed diva Lillian Nordica, whose voice still echoes through the Farmington auditorium named in her honor•The hostile spirit who tried to frighten the tenants out of an Orrington house•Even an entire phantom ship, bound eternally for FreeportThese are not fictitious creations of literary imagination. People from all walks of life—including many who were positive they would never believe in ghosts—attest to these encounters.

Grandma has run the town's garbage business, and her three sons drive the trucks. But what happens when her sons are all too sick to work-and it's the 4th of July, the day of the Big Parade? Leave it to Grandma to get the town clean, with the help of her young grandson, Billy, as she embarks on a hilarious romp through town-and creates nearly as much mess as she cleans up.

The redoubtable Grandma—this book is a sequel to Grandma Drove the Snowplow—is at it again. After all her hard work collecting the town’s garbage and plowing the roads, Grandma deserves a day off—and what better day than Labor Day. All she has to do is sit back and enjoy a nice boat ride with her littlest grandson Billy while her sons catch the lobsters for the town Lobster Bake. But what happens when the waves get choppy, the fog rolls in, and all the boats are in difficulty? Can Grandma take the helm and get the lobsters back to shore in time?More great fun as our intrepid heroine is again placed at the center of small town life and in the middle of a local celebration.

When an injured fox (crippled by a steel-jawed trap) hobbled into Cherie Mason's yard one morning, it was the start of a special and unusual relationship. The young fox had every reason to fear humans, yet was won over by Cherie's persistent gentleness˜and the tidbits from her kitchen. For half a year he was a regular visitor and became something of a celebrity in the small Maine community. Yet he always remained a wild fox. He hunted his own food and interacted with other foxes. This is Cherie Mason's poignant story of how she befriended a wild creature, knowing that his instincts would soon lead him away forever. Suffused with gentle wonder, Wild Fox speaks to the deep human longing to span the gulf between species.