Just Beyond Reach And Other Riddles

A good riddle, like a good poem, can be read again and again. These fourteen original riddle poems are no exception–solving them is a challenge, yet they are also poems in their own right and will inspire rereadings even after the answers are revealed.

September 1, 2018

Mom’s Best Friend

When Sally Hobart Alexander loses Marit, her first dog guide, the entire family mourns. But for the author, this death means more than heartache–it means curtailed mobility. Fiercely independent, Sally Alexander finds “going sighted guide” or walking with a cane inadequate. She decides to return to The Seeing Eye, where she obtained Marit twelve years before, for another dog guide.

August 31, 2018

Christopher Columbus

The book tells the story of the years leading up to the voyage that Christopher Columbus made in 1492. The life of Columbus from boy, young seaman, and visionary is told with the backgrounds of the ancient streets, docks, and ships, in the seaport of Barcelona, Spain. 

August 30, 2018

Handtalk School

Come visit our school! Some children take the bus to this school for deaf children; many others live there in the dormitory, a home away from home complete with house parents. But readers need only open the pages of Handtalk School to spend a school day with a group of residential students involved in the fun of putting on the Thanksgiving play.

August 29, 2018

My New Baby-Sitter

A new caregiver is an important addition to any family. Whether your child needs full-time care while you work or a sitter for your occasional evenings out, there is a lot you can do to lessen your own feelings of anxiety and to help make your child’s time with the sitter more enjoyable.

August 27, 2018

Harry’s Helicopter

One afternoon, Harry Hopkins climbs inside his model cardboard helicopter, adjusts his earphones, and—whoosh!—he and his bright red chopper take off.

August 25, 2018

Pioneer Settlers of New France

For Jean François Lelange and Pierre André, the summer of 1744 is one they will long remember. As Jean waits for his uncle’s merchant ships to return with much-needed supplies, Pierre worries that his father, a fishing proprietor, has no food to give his hungry fishermen. Has France really gone to war against the British, as rumored?

August 22, 2018

Mom Can’t See Me

This is Sally Hobart Alexander’s own story as told by of her nine-year-old daughter. When she was in her twenties, a rare disease caused the author’s vision to diminish gradually over two years until it was gone. As Leslie Alexander says of her mother, “Mostly she’s like other mothers.” But she’s different not because she is blind, but because she camps out, plays the piano, tap dances, rides her bike and because she laughs a lot, especially at herself. 

August 21, 2018

The American Family Farm

In the fall of 1986, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that an American farm was going out of business every six minutes. Not long after, photographer George Ancona and writer Joan Anderson set out to document this important American institution. Two years of telephone calls, research, and travel led them to focus on three very different farm families: the MacMillans, in Massachusetts, who specialize in dairy farming; the Adamses, in Georgia, who raise chickens and have created a farm cooperative; and the Rosmanns, in Iowa, who have an organic hog and grain operation.

August 20, 2018

Spanish Pioneers of the Southwest

El Rancho de Las Golondrinas is a settlement that served as a fort and an inn on the Camino Real during the seventeenth century in what is now Santa Fe, New Mexico. Interpreters dress and act the part of the early colonists. We see the families work the fields, the visiting monks who sustain the faith of the settlers.

August 19, 2018

Dolphins at Grassy Key

Dolphins are extraordinary creatures. Who would not be thrilled to rub noses with them in the water, grab on to their dorsal fins and go for a fast ride, to watch them leap high overhead, and even to pet their snouts gently? Visitors do this daily at the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key, Florida. They also see how dolphins are fed, cared for, and trained to perform in shows. 

August 18, 2018