Books published by publisher Tilbury House Publishers

Kanzi's family has moved from Egypt to America, and on her first day in a new school, what she wants more than anything is to fit in. Maybe that's why she forgets to take the kofta sandwich her mother has made for her lunch, but that backfires when Mama shows up at school with the sandwich. Mama wears a hijab and calls her daughter Habibti (dear one). When she leaves, the teasing starts.That night, Kanzi wraps herself in the beautiful Arabic quilt her teita (grandma) in Cairo gave her and writes a poem in Arabic about the quilt. Next day her teacher sees the poem and gets the entire class excited about creating a "quilt" (a paper collage) of student names in Arabic. In the end, Kanzi's most treasured reminder of her old home provides a pathway for acceptance in her new one. This authentic story with beautiful illustrations includes a glossary of Arabic words and a presentation of Arabic letters with their phonetic English equivalents. full color

A new kid-friendly tour of art history from the inventive Newbolds.Edward Hopper’s monster lurks outside the nighthawks’ diner. James Whistler’s monster rocks in her chair. Monsters invade masterpieces by Dorthea Tanning, Paul Cezanne, M.C. Escher, Jean Michel Basquiat, Giuseppe Archimboldo, Rene Magritte, Henri Rousseau, Franz Kline, Frida Kahlo, Bob Thompson, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Thomas Hart Benton, and Helen Frankenthaler. The monster emerging from Claude Monet’s waterlilies is unforgettable. Our guide for this romp through re-imagined masterpieces is an engaging hamster. Thumbnail biographies of the artists identify their iconic works. full color

A Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choice of 2013Reading Is Fundamental STEAM CollectionKunu wants to make a pack basket, just like the other men on Indian Island.But making the basket is difficult, and Kunu gets frustrated. He is ready to give up when his grandfather intervenes. This is not only a story about a family tradition, but also a story about learning to be patient and gentle with yourself. A story about contemporary Native American life This new paperback edition includes a new Author’s Note about the traditions and importance of basketmaking in Penobscot Nation culture. Fountas & Pinnell Level N

2019 Moonbeam Silver MedalMany thousands of years ago, when a sheet of ice up to a mile thick began to let go of the land, the Atlantic Ocean flooded great valleys that had been scooped out by glaciers, and the salty waves of an inland sea lapped the green hills of Vermont. Into this arm of the sea swam Charlotte. Her milky, smooth, muscled body sliced slowly through the water like scissors through silk. Like a chirping canary, her voice echoed across dark waters showing the way to her pod as belugas have done for millions of years.In 1849, a crew building a railroad through Charlotte, Vermont, dug up strange and beautiful bones in a farmer’s field. A local naturalist asked Louis Agassiz to help identify them, and the famous scientist concluded that the bones belonged to a beluga whale. But how could a whale’s skeleton have been buried so far from the ocean? The answer―that Lake Champlain had once been an arm of the sea―encouraged radical new thinking about geological time scales and animal evolution. Charlotte’s Bones is a haunting, science-based reconstruction of how Charlotte died 11,000 years ago in a tidal marsh, how the marsh became a field, how Charlotte found a second life as the Vermont state fossil, and what messages her bones whisper to us now about the fragility of life and our changing Earth.Some reader reviews:I am a paleoanthropologist at Dartmouth College-- I study the human evolution and both retrieve & study early human fossils in Africa. We've connected very briefly on twitter when I tweeted out my love of Jeff Howe's book about Charlotte and Nick Pyerson's recent whale book. I just purchased and read Charlotte's Bones to my kids this morning. It is beyond beautiful. I tell my college students all the time that every fossil is precious; that every fossil has a story to tell and deserves to have its story told. Your book captures not just the science, but the true meaning of fossils and how they reveal a deep connectedness between living things, past and present. It is a gift of a book-- thank you. Jerry DeSilva I read Charlotte’s Bones yesterday. My sister Ellen showed it to me. It is beautifully written and illustrated to such an extent it is difficult to read without becoming very emotional. The combination of such pure prose and captivating illustration makes the reader ‘own’ Charlotte’s experience and therefore the reader cares. This is key to us humans, particularly the young ones, actually investing emotionally and practically in the fate of our precious wildlife. I think this fabulous book should be compulsory reading for children and if it makes them sad so much the better. It will help plant seeds of thought and compassion which can blossom in to a passion for respecting and conserving our precious species so under threat from the actions of us humans. Congratulations to you and Erin. Keep going and produce more on this theme please! Kind Regards, Vicky Yeates Color throughout

*NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book* *Junior Library Guild Selection 2017*Only a few dozen vertebrate animals have evolved true gliding abilities, but they include an astonishing variety of mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.North America’s flying squirrels and Australia’s sugar gliders notwithstanding, the vast majority of them live in rainforests. Illustrated with arresting photographs, Catching Air takes us around the world to meet these animals, learn why so many gliders live in Southeast Asia, and find out why this gravity-defying ability has evolved in Draco lizards, snakes, and frogs as well as mammals. Why do gliders stop short of flying, how did bats make that final leap, and how did Homo sapiens bypass evolution to glide via wingsuits and hang gliders―or is that evolution in another guise? color photography

Mr. Book With No Story wants his pages uncluttered by pictures and plot lines, but images, questions, and ideas keep invading the unruly pages he is trying to police, ignoring his efforts to chase them away.Mr. Book is determined to share nothing with readers, but his pages have other ideas.It turns out that Mr. Book’s big fear is having nothing worthwhile to say, but in this fun, zany tribute to the creative process, he needn’t have worried. The bumbling blowhard of the first page inspires empathy and affection by the time the last page chimes in. The messages are simple: Stories are fun, and all of us can tell them. full color

A Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choice of 2013Reading Is Fundamental STEAM CollectionKunu wants to make a pack basket, just like the other men on Indian Island.But making the basket is difficult, and Kunu gets frustrated. He is ready to give up when his grandfather intervenes. This is not only a story about a family tradition, but also a story about learning to be patient and gentle with yourself. A story about contemporary Native American life This new paperback edition includes a new Author’s Note about the traditions and importance of basketmaking in Penobscot Nation culture.Fountas & Pinnell Level N

Selected for the 2018 Bank Street College of Education Best STEM Children’s Books of the YearWhat do the goblin shark, horseshoe crab, the “indestructible” water bear, and a handful of other bizarre animals have in common? They are all “extreme survivors,” animals that still look much like their prehistoric ancestors from millions of years ago. Meet ten amazing animals that appear to have changed little in more than 100 million years. They are the rare exceptions to the rule.More than 99 percent of all life forms have gone extinct during the 3.6-billion-year history of life on Earth. Other organisms have changed dramatically, but not our extreme survivors. Evolution may have altered their physiology and behavior, but their body plans have stood the test of time. How have these living links with Earth’s prehistoric past survived? The search for answers is leading scientists to new discoveries about the past―and future―of life on Earth. The survival secrets of some of these ancient creatures could lead to new medicines and treatments for disease. Written in a lively, entertaining voice, Extreme Survivors provides detailed life histories and strange “survival secrets” of ten ancient animals and explains evolution and natural selection. Extensive back matter includes glossary, additional facts and geographic range for each organism and a geologic timeline of Earth. F&P Level V Color Photography throughout

* Moonbeam Award *Even though Davey is blind, he is quite capable―until he tries to play kickball.After several missed kicks and a trampled base keeper, no one wants Davey on the team. But maybe, just maybe, there’s a solution that will work for everybody.F&P Text Level NGenevieve Petrillo has been teaching elementary students in New Jersey for 34 years. David DeNotaris was in her classroom many years ago, and this is a true story. Color throughout

There is a deserted bay on a small island off Antigua where hawksbill turtles crawl ashore at night during the mating season to lay their eggs. Two months later the hatchlings―each weighing less than an ounce―emerge from the sand and scramble to the sea in the moonlight. Only a lucky few survive. Mary Beth Owens was inspired by her admiration and concern for these critically endangered animals to write and illustrate this beautiful book. The narrator―a craggy, ancient jumby tree that stands sentinel over the bay―observes a hawksbill’s arrival by night, her arduous trek to excavate a nest and bury her eggs, her solitary return to the sea, and the later diaspora of her hatchlings. Spare prose complements pages saturated with Caribbean color or brooding in ghostly moonlight. Color throughout

Named to the Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year for 202020th Annual Massachusetts Book Awards “Must Reads”: A Must-Read Picture BookCYBILS Award short listWhen Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, fifteen-year-old Dan French had no way to know that one day his tribute to the great president would transform a plot of Washington, DC marshland into America’s gathering place. He did not even know that a sculptor was something to be. He only knew that he liked making things with his hands.This is the story of how a farmboy became America’s foremost sculptor. After failing at academics, Dan was working the family farm when he idly carved a turnip into a frog and discovered what he was meant to do. Sweeney’s swift prose and Fields’s evocative illustrations capture the single-minded determination with which Dan taught himself to sculpt and launched his career with the famous Minuteman Statue in his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts. This is also the story of the Lincoln Memorial, French’s culminating masterpiece. Thanks to this lovingly created tribute to the towering leader of Dan’s youth, Abraham Lincoln lives on as the man of marble, his craggy face and careworn gaze reminding millions of seekers what America can be. Dan’s statue is no lifeless figure, but a powerful, vital touchstone of a nation’s ideals. Now Dan French has his tribute too, in this exquisite biography that brings history to life for young readers. B&W and color

* Winner, ASPCA Henry Bergh Award ** Teacher’s Choices, International Reading Association *Two children and their mother, new to the neighborhood, befriend Noelie Houle, an elderly lady who raises goats.Her other neighbors bemoan the "Goat Lady's" rundown house and barnyard animals, but the children see how she cares for her goats, they hear her stories, and they come to love her. For many years Noelie has provided goat's milk for people who need it and has sent her extra goat kids to poor people in poor countries through the Heifer Project. The children's mother paints a series of portraits of the "Goat Lady," and her art show at the local town hall helps the rest of the community see Noelie's kindness and courage.F&P Text Level Q Color throughout