Kids Library

Developed by experts in the fields of early childhood and activism against injustice, this topic-driven board book offers clear, concrete language that young children can grasp and adults can leverage for further discussion.

The town is building a new park for a panda and her baby. But as soon as the pandas arrive, the baby is stolen! All the panda-nappers want in return is a million dollars.... Can Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose collar the culprits before Green Lawn has to cough up the cash?

K is for Kidnapped! Someone has kidnapped the king and queen of Socotra. For safety's sake, their son is staying with Dink until they are safe. But then the prince is kidnapped, too! Can Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose unmask the royals' enemies before it's too late? Or is the royal family of Socotra gone forever?

N is for Nugget...Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose are spending a week at a dude ranch. Everything is normal in a cowboy kind of way - until Josh finds a huge gold nugget! Just as they are deciding what to do with their newfound riches, the nugget disappears. Will the kids be able to track down the thief before it's time to mosey on home?

Many years ago, the storytellers say, the great King Arthur brought justice to England with the help of his gallant Knights of the Round Table. There was Sir Lancelot the Great, Sir Kay the Loyal, Sir Bedivere the Just, and others, including young Givret, who was known for being...well, short. Poor Givret: His size makes him so easy to overlook. But there’s more to knighthood than height, and before long, Givret’s quick thinking lands him a place at the famous Round Table!

King Arthur’s Knights were brave like Sir Lancelot the Great. They were smart like Sir Givret the Short. But they didn’t always act quite as...gallantly as a true knight should. Even King Arthur’s nephew, known at that time as Sir Gawain the Undefeated, was too full of himself to accept a token of thanks from a rescued princess! Someone, like a giant Green Knight, needed to teach Sir Gawain that courtesy and friendship are just as important as strength and courage. Come ride along on this exciting year-long quest of Sir Gawain the Undefeated-but-who-may-learn-a-lesson-along-the-way.

Concrete Kids is an exploration of love and loss, melody and bloodshed. Musician, playwright, and educator Amyra León takes us on a poetic journey through her childhood in Harlem, as she navigates the intricacies of foster care, mourning, self-love, and resilience. In her signature free-verse style, she invites us all to dream with abandon - and to recognize the privilege it is to dream at all.

America meant "freedom" to the immigrants of the early 1900s - but a freedom very different from what they expected. Cities were crowded and jobs were scare. Children had to work selling newspapers, delivering goods, and laboring sweatshops. In this touching book, Newberry Medalist Russell Freedman offers a rare glimpse of what it meant to be a young newcomer to America.

Able-bodied Arnie teases Philip - a new student at his school who uses a wheelchair. However, after Arnie injures himself while making fun of Philip, he begins to understand what it means to be compassionate and welcoming.

Introducing Papilio Polyxenes, the Black Swallowtail Butterfly! She’s an adorable and hilarious caterpillar who is ready to join the world and become a butterfly! But growing up is a complicated work in progress, and Papilio encounters some hiccups as she learns to fly, fall, and feed. While avoiding foes and making friends, she transforms from caterpillar, to chrysalis, to butterfly...and most importantly, learns to believe in herself along the way.

When Leda wakes up by falling out of bed, she knows that gravity is in a very bad mood. Again. Sure enough, she struggles with stumbles and bumbles at home, trips and blips on the bus, and bashes and crashes in the classroom. But a lesson on gravity helps her understand what’s really going on. And after a visit to a science center, Leda's mood is lifted...just in time for her to tumble—happily!—into bed. With a very funny text from award-winner Wendelin Van Draanen, Gravity is Bringing Me Down makes it hilariously clear how this science concept impacts kids' lives every day.

The kids of Cooperstown made it to the World Series! Technically, Mike and Kate are just there to support their friend, Colin, and his teammates as they play for the championship. But the competition gets tricky when someone starts trying to sabotage Cooperstown's team - they punch holes in the tires of their bus, and the team's equipment goes missing! Can Mike and Kate find the trickster before it's too late? Or will these shenanigans cost Cooperstown the series?

Told from the perspective of a student, The New Kid Welcome (or Welcome the New Kid when flipped) presents listeners with two versions of what happens when a "new kid" joins the protagonist's school. In the first half of the book, the student tells us that they don’t want to be nice to the new kid or welcome them into their group simply because they seem different. In the second half, the same lines of the story are placed in reverse order. When heard this way, the student encourages us to say hello to someone new, saying they will share their table and snacks.

In this adaptation of her heartfelt memoir, especially inspiring for middle-grade listeners, Arceneaux shares the details of her wild ride with never-before-told stories written especially for kids coming to this edition. Arceneaux not only tells listeners what it was like to go to space—from training in a fighter jet to lifting off in a Dragon capsule—but she also offers stories from her childhood: things that she faced at the hospital when going through cancer treatment, what she had to overcome when she went back to school, and the courage it took to dream big dreams.

Underneath the New Mexico sky, a Navajo boy named Cody finds that his family's barrels of water are empty. He checks the chicken coop—nothing. He walks down the road to the horses' watering hole. Dry. Meanwhile, a few miles away, Darlene Arviso drives a school bus and picks up students for school. After dropping them off, she heads to another job: she drives her big yellow tanker truck to the water tower, fills it with three thousand gallons of water, and returns to the reservation, bringing water to Cody's family, and many, many others.

An ode to the girl with scrapes on her knees and flowers in her hair, and every girl in between, this exquisite treasury will appeal to fans of Dear Girl and I Am Enough and have kids poring over it to find a poem that's just for them.

The spirit of Christmas lasts all year long... unless you are an ornament, stuck in a dusty box in the closet 11 months out of the year! This December 26th, it's gonna be different. The ornaments know of a place where they can be free to sparkle, where life is a 24-hour, 365-day Christmas buffet ...the North Pole! But when the family cat gets involved, their plan hits a snag. And soon the ornaments come to realize that togetherness is the best gift, and it can't be Christmas forever without family.

Dolores Huerta always knew that helping others in her community was important. So when she became a teacher and saw how hard it was for her students from farm families to find enough to eat, she knew there was more she could do. Dolores became a labor rights activist, fighting for better conditions for farm workers. She started unions so that workers would be treated more fairly. And she was also a leader of the women's rights movement.

To millions of kids, the books they read are more than entertainment - they are mirrors to hold up to their own lives. And the creators of those books are more than just writers - they are mentors, confidants, friends, sometimes the only ones who understand. There is often an unspoken, unseen bond between an author and his or her readers. Dear Author brings this bond to light for the whole world to see and to celebrate. Many of today’s best-selling YA authors respond to this intimate mix of heartbreaking and heartwarming letters, giving a glimpse into the hearts of kids today.

Buffalo Fluffalo arrives on the scene puffed up with self-importance. Stomping around and raising billows of dust, Buffalo Fluffalo proclaims his superiority to the other creatures—the ram, the prairie dog, and the crow—who just want to be his friend. So Buffalo Fluffalo, who has had enuffalo, heads off to grumble to himself. Suddenly, a rain shower pours down from the clouds and—what’s this? All of his fluffalo is a soggy mess! There Fluffalo stands, a drenched pip-squeak without his disguise.