Philip Christian Stead. Roaring Brook/Porter, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-59643-562-9
"You're getting too old for a stuffed animal," young Jonathan's parents tell him. "So we traded your bear for a toaster." Jonathan doesn't argue; instead, he drifts down to the wharf to visit the Big Blue Boat he admires. Suddenly he has a plan;...
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Philip C. Stead. Roaring Brook/Porter, $18.99 (48p) ISBN 978-1-62672-181-4
Children’s book creators are often asked where they get their ideas. What if they run out? “I have to write a story today,” Stead (Sebastian and the Balloon) starts. “But today I don’t have any ideas.” Instead, he takes his dog, Wednesday, for a...
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Philip C. Stead. Roaring Brook/Porter, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-62672-182-1
Stead (Ideas Are All Around) returns to themes he’s made his own: friendship, acceptance, and love for small, ordinary objects that most people overlook. Together, his observations form a gentle theology. Samson is a mammoth who wears an expression...
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Philip C. Stead. Roaring Brook/Porter, $18.99 (48p) ISBN 978-1-62672-656-7
In the meditative manner of his Ideas Are All Around, Caldecott-winner Stead looks at the animals in his neighborhood, and at his own life. He recalls the only bear he’s ever met, a stuffed bear named Frederick (“My Grandma Jane gave me Frederick...
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Philip C. Stead. Roaring Brook/Porter, $19.99 (64p) ISBN 978-1-62672-655-0
Vernon, the thoughtful toad who charmed readers in A Home for Bird, returns with his good friends Skunk and Porcupine. In the first of three stories, Vernon waits for one of the world’s slowest forms of transportation (a snail). In the second, the...
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Philip Stead. Doubleday, $18.99 (48p) ISBN 978-0-593-37508-2
Beginning with assonant three-line phrases that start “I’d like to be...,” euphonious prose builds to experiential wishes. Varying between the strictly naturalistic (“Oh, I’d like to be/ the raindrop/ falling on a turtle shell”) and the seemingly...
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Philip C. Stead. Holiday House/Porter, $18.99 (48p) ISBN 978-0-8234-5583-6
Stead (The Sun Is Late and So Is the Farmer) retells the Aesop’s fable of the title, introducing three sisters, portrayed with silver hair and brown skin, and each dressed in a red, yellow, or blue woolen coat. “Many times patched and many times...
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Philip C. Stead, illus. by Erin E. Stead. Roaring Brook/Porter, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-59643-932-0
Peter’s new house is surrounded by dark woods, and he spends a long night worrying about what’s out there. The next morning he gets to work, making a guardian out of blankets and cushions. Peter names his lumpy guardian Lenny and seats him at the...
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Philip C. Stead, illus. by Erin E. Stead. Holiday House/Porter, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-8234-4160-0
A girl named Harriet accidentally knocks the moon out of the sky in this story by the Caldecott Award–winning Steads. He’s a round, lemony globe with a kindly expression who dreams of not being the moon; she takes him rowing on a lake (which he’s...
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Philip C. Stead, illus. by Matthew Cordell. Holiday House/Porter, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8234-4426-7
In this collaboration by the creators of Special Delivery, intrepid pilot Sadie turns the spotlight over to her aunt Josephine, a bonneted dowager whose intrepid spirit is undimmed by age. She’s still in bed when a loud knock sounds on the door one...
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Philip C. Stead, illus. by Matthew Cordell. Holiday House/Porter, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-8234-4427-4
Grandma knows it’s going to rain; “I can feel it in my knees,” she says, directing her shaggy-haired grandchild Louis to grab a raincoat for a walk through their neighborhood. Soon, rain starts pelting down, and everyone around them dashes for cover.
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Philip C. Stead, illus. by Erin E. Stead. Roaring Brook, $18.99 (48p) ISBN 978-1-250-21322-8
In this follow-up to A Sick Day for Amos McGee, the pale-skinned zookeeper plans to finish his work chores early so he can take all of his animal friends on an outing—but, instead, he falls asleep at the kitchen table. Though the resultant rush for...
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Philip C. Stead, illus. by Erin E. Stead. Holiday House/Porter, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8234-4428-1
“There is a silence inside of everything.” The almost prayerful early lines of this reverent episodic narrative by the married collaborators (The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine) confer unexpected dignity on its protagonists: a mule, a milk cow,...
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Philip C. Stead, illus. by Matthew Cordell. Roaring Brook/Porter, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-59643-931-3
Stead (Sebastian and the Balloon) channels some Russell Hoban–style loopiness with this story about Sadie, a girl attempting to ship an elephant to her Great-Aunt Josephine, “who lives almost completely alone and could really use the company.” When...
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Philip C. Stead, illus. by Matthew Cordell. Roaring Brook/Porter, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-62672-282-8
Sadie, the inimitable hero of Special Delivery, has returned. Her arrow-straight sense of justice sends her in search of a birthday goldfish that Little Amy Scott has thrown into the sea, plastic bag and all. Sadie’s friend Sherman and the hilarious
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Mark Twain and Philip C. Stead, illus. by Erin Stead. Doubleday, $24.99 (160p) ISBN 978-0-553-52322-5
Working from notes Twain made after telling an especially successful bedtime story, Philip C. Stead completes the tale of gentle Johnny, whose heart is pure despite his bleak surroundings and cruel grandfather. A magic flower gives him the power to...
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