Miley Cyrus is taking the world by storm as Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana— her soundtrack album debuted at number one on the Billboard charts, she’s signed a four-album deal with Hollywood Records, she has a hit show on Disney Channel, and she went on tour with The Cheetah Girls. Now find out what Miley’s like behind the scenes! Four pages of full-color photographs provide an up-close-and-personal look into the life of Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana.
After months of searching, not to mention leading a pride of escaped circus lions through Europe and all the way back to Africa, Catspeaker Charlie Ashanti has finally been reunited with his parents—and a long-lost relative with a huge secret to reveal. But their family reunion doesn't last long. Kidnapped and thrown in a boat, Charlie finds himself alone and bound for who knows where. Charlie's parents and his faithful lion friends are in hot pursuit, but can Charlie outwit his captor and topple the Corporacy's wicked enterprise? That's the plan, and Charlie intends to pull it off—no matter the cost.
Kindergarten-Grade 4–Paper-collage whiz Jenkins returns to the space art he used to such breathtaking effect in Looking Down (Houghton, 2003), but here he looks up: at the entire solar system, and, briefly, beyond. The text, written by his physicist father, provides a nearly number-free scattering of basic facts, beginning with an overview of the system, depicting planets and major moons from the Sun on out, then closing with spreads on space travel, and the idea of life on other planets. In alternating close-ups and pages of smaller scenes, the artist overlays pieces of cut, painted, crumpled, or otherwise worked papers for dramatic evocations of swirling clouds, airless expanses of rocky rubble, storms, volcanoes, spacecraft, and more. Unfortunately, the beauty here is sometimes only skin deep; the volcano Maxwell Mons, for instance, is incorrectly placed on Mars rather than Venus, and the clean look of one view of the solar system is achieved by leaving out the asteroid belt, and assigning Pluto to a wro
The Thank You Book by Carole Stuart, illus. by Arthur Robins, encourages youngsters to mind their p's and q's with cartoonish drawings featuring a chipper boy and girl, and an equally upbeat text. The book offers various examples of when a thank-you is in order (when Dad offers a ride to school; when a teacher solves a problem in art class, etc.), and tells how children from all over the world express their thanks. Carole Stuart and Arthur Robins want to teach children a simple lesson: the importance of saying thank you. Stuart and Robins show children and their parents how easy these words can be to say and when, during a typical day, it might be appropriate. In the company of a brother-and-sister team, readers go from breakfast through bedtime, learning all the thankyous along the way. Robins is the winner of the Nestle Smarties Book Prize, the English equivalent of the Caldecott Medal.
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Here in lyrical prose is the story of the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the words that became the national anthem of the United States. This flag, which came to be known as the Star-Spangled Banner, also inspired author Susan Campbell Bartoletti, who, upon seeing it at the Smithsonian Institution, became curious about the hands that had sewn it. Here is her story of the early days of this flag as seen through the eyes of young Caroline Pickersgill, the daughter of an important flag maker, Mary Pickersgill, and the granddaughter of a flag maker for General George Washington’s Continental Army. It is also a story about how a symbol motivates action and emotion, brings people together, and inspires courage and hope.
Dr. Robert Mason, the current recipient of the National Science Foundation"s Young Investigator Award, has been studying a mysterious phenomenon for over fifteen years: the reemergence of tens of thousands of red-sided garter snakes — the world"s largest concentration of snakes — after a winter spent in a state of suspended animation in subterranean caverns. This gathering each spring in the forests of Manitoba, Canada, is one of the most extraordinary events of the natural world and is the subject of study for Dr. Mason, a.k.a. the Snake Scientist.
The creators of Brothers of the Knight here offer an inspirational story of a hopeful young ballet dancer who complains of her too-big feet and too-long legs: "I was too big for the boys to pick up, and too tall to be in line with the other girls. So I watched from backstage, dancing in the wings, hoping that if I just kept dancing and trying, it would be my turn to dance in the spotlight." Though her brother and several of her peers constantly razz her, Sassy's uncle encourages her to audition for a role in a summer dance festival, asserting, "All you gotta do to make your mark on the world is walk into a room." The director of the festival echoes this sentiment when he announcesAin the book's foreseeable denouementAthat Sassy has landed a place in his program. Allen's wordy narrative occasionally tries too hard to be hip (featuring such slang put-downs as "Your mama" and "Talk to the hand"), but this tale may well boost the confidence of youngsters who share Sassy's lack of self-assuredness. Nelson's animat
