Picture Books

Journey - Aaron Becker
Using a red marker, a young girl draws a door on her bedroom wall and through it enters another world where she experiences many adventures, including being captured by an evil emperor.

The Day the Crayons Quit - Drew Daywalt
When Duncan arrives at school one morning, he finds a stack of letters, one from each of his crayons, complaining about how he uses them.

Ol' Clip-Clop - Patricia C. McKissack
One October night in 1745, John Leep, a mean and stingy lawyer, sets out to evict a widow from one of his rental houses and is followed by a ghostly rider.

The Apple Orchard Riddle - Margaret McNamara
When students in Mr. Tiffin's class are invited to solve a riddle during a field trip to an apple orchard, it is Tara's daydreams that may lead to the answer.

Daisy Gets Lost - Chris Raschka
A young dog experiences the fear of being lost and the joys of being found when she becomes separated from her owner.




Biographies

When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop - Laban Carrick Hill
Before there was hip hop, there was DJ Kool Herc. On a hot day at the end of summer in 1973 Cindy Campbell threw a back-to-school party at a park in the South Bronx. Her brother, Clive Campbell, spun the records. He had a new way of playing the music to make the breaks the musical interludes between verses longer for dancing. He called himself DJ Kool Herc and this is When the Beat Was Born. From his childhood in Jamaica to his youth in the Bronx, Laban Carrick Hill's book tells how Kool Herc came to be a DJ, how kids in gangs stopped fighting in order to breakdance, and how the music he invented went on to define a culture and transform the world.

Daredevil: The Daring Life of Betty Skelton - Meghan McCarthy
Recounts the life and career of the pilot, race car driver, and astronaut, Betty Skelton.