New Releases by J. Patrick Lewis

"Elephants, with their matriarchal societies, long memories, and demonstrations of emotional connections, are some of the world's most treasured animals. However, they are also among the most threatened. It is up to humans to protect them before it is too late"--

Learn a turkey's fondest Thanksgiving wish! Beautiful color photos and lyrical text written by Children's Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis transform these nonfiction books into works of art as they introduce readers (Ages 6-7) to Holidays.From setting the table to sharing a meal with family, this book helps readers celebrate the joys of Thanksgiving.

Rhyming text provides facts about Valentine's Day.

"From building a gingerbread house to sharing presents under the tree, this book helps readers celebrate the joys of Christmas. They'll even learn why sometimes Santa prefers the front door!"--

Gorgeous illustrations surround a collection of poetry written for children about the magic, beauty, and promise of sea voyages.

Who is making all the mischief in this house? It's not the baby! Short rhyming lines in this board book pose a toddler-appropriate whodunit and expressive art shows the true culprits. Little ones will chime on the repeated title refrain and will delight in the surprise ending—when of course—it finally IS the baby.

Thirteen classic poems by poets such as Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, and David McCord are paired with parodies that honor and play off of the original poems in a range of ways. For example, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is paired with "Stopping by Fridge on a Hungry Evening" to hilarious effect, whereas the combination of Emily Dickinson's "'Hope' is the thing with feathers" with Lewis's "'Grief' is the thing with tissues" is profound, and both David McCord's "This Is My Rock" and Lewis's "This Is My Tree" hum with a sense of wonder. This playful introduction to classics will inspire imagination and wonder even as it tickles funny bones.

Rhyming text provides facts about such desert animals as road runners, meerkats, and camels.

The poetry of J. Patrick Lewis does what poetry is expected to do: challenge and move the reader to confront his/her feelings, perceptions, and experiences of being alive.

Children's Poets Laureate J. Patrick Lewis and Kenn Nesbitt team up to offer a smart, stealthy tour of the creatures of shadowy myth and fearsome legend—the enticing, the humorous, and the strange. Bigfoot, the Mongolian Death Worm, and the Loch Ness Monster number among the many creatures lurking within these pages. Readers may have to look twice—the poems in this book are disguised as street signs, newspaper headlines, graffiti, milk cartons, and more!

Kar-Ben Read-Aloud eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and text highlighting to bring eBooks to life! An old man, known as the Wren, plays his hurdy-gurdy, and with the help of his student, the Sparrow, brings hope and inspiration to the people of a small Polish town. A beautifully illustrated Holocaust fable by US Children's Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis.

Presents a treasury of animal-themed jokes and riddles.

J. Patrick Lewis did not come under poetry's spell until late in life—but when it struck, the former college economics professor was entranced.This collection celebrates some of his best poems for children—some silly, some serious, some historical, some invention, but all aimed to delight.The vibrant and playful illustrations of Italian artist Maria Cristina Pritelli lend a sense of vitality to the words, underscoring the idea that Everything Is a Poem.

"Lewis's poetics are perfectly complemented by Kelley's evocative pastel illustrations, which both inspire and unsettle." –New York Times They went by many names, but the world came to know them best as the Harlem Hellfighters. Two thousand strong, these black Americans from New York picked up brass instruments—under the leadership of famed bandleader and lieutenant James Reese Europe—to take the musical sound of Harlem into the heart of war. From the creators of the 2012 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Honor Book, And the Soldiers Sang, this remarkable narrative nonfiction rendering of WWI -- and American -- history uses free-verse poetry and captivating art to tell century-old story of hellish combat, racist times, rare courage, and inspired music.

From the Children’s Poet Laureate comes a year-round ode to wacky holidays just begging to be celebrated. Nobody should ever forget Ewe on Ohio Sheep Day (July 14). No mata mata how hard they may try on World Turtle Day (May 23). If you’ve never heard of Dragon Appreciation Day, International Cephalopod Awareness Day, or Yell “Fudge!” at the Cobras in North America Day, it’s not because they don’t exist, it’s simply that they needed someone to spread the word. Luckily, the fantastically zany poems of J. Patrick Lewis and Anna Raff’s equally hilarious illustrations have memorialized these holidays forever. So get out your calendars — from Happy Mew Year for Cats Day to Chocolate-Covered Anything Day, World Rat Day (April 4) calls for a year-round celebration.

In moving verse, Children’s Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis gives new voice to seventeen heroes of civil rights. Exquisitely illustrated by five extraordinary artists, this commanding collection of poems invites the reader to hear in each verse the thunder that lies in every voice, no matter how small. Featuring civil rights luminaries Coretta Scott King, Harvey Milk, Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Sylvia Mendez, Aung San Suu Kyi, Mamie Carthan Till, Helen Zia, Josh Gibson, Dennis James Banks, Mitsuye Endo, Ellison Onizuka, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Yunus, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.

Children’s Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis and the inimitable Jane Yolen team up in this ironic and witty take on the last moments in the lives of a variety of animals. Each satirical poem in this darkly humorous collection is an epitaph of a different animal. Grouped by animal type, these posthumous poems are full of clever wordplay and macabre humor that will appeal to kids (and adults) of all ages. From the humble chicken to the great blue whale, this laugh-out-loud poetry collection is sure to be a hit at storytimes and around Halloween.

You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees. So said Kaiser Wilhelm II to his German army in August 1914. But World War I would rage for more than 4 years, taking the lives of nearly 10 million soldiers. Some of the most unrelenting combat was waged along the infamous Western Front, where, for one unforgettable Christmas in 1914, enemies set guns aside and came together in friendship. And the Soldiers Sang, written by J. Patrick Lewis, recounts this unlikely truce through the perspective of a young soldier named Owen Davies, who travels from the green country of Wales to the muddy battlefields of Belgium.

To do something with seven fingers is a Yiddish expression meaning to do something well or adroitly. Marc Chagall was a Russian Jew and a wandering dreamer. From his humble hometown of Vitebsk, Belarus, he went out to take in the world the grandeur of St. Petersburg, the romance of Paris, the freedom of New York. Through wars, Nazi persecution, and the passing of nine decades, he found love, pioneered techniques in modernism, and painted. Above all, he painted. Fourteen of Chagall s works are here vividly reproduced and accompanied by the poems of notable children s writers J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen in this colorful celebration of a most remarkable artist.

The topic about witchcraft is vast with details that may discourage someone with problems. If you go to the doctor and you are told that you have flu, you will not appreciate the doctor telling you about other strings of flu viruses or how it was discovered. At that moment in time, you just want the doctor to prescribe some appropriate medications for you and let you go back home to sleep. This is comparable to the history of witchcraft which dates back to the beginning of human creation. Therefore, it is part of nature; a form of manipulation which fits with cruel intentions. There is no community or society that does not have some dark history related to this matter. It is also part of spiritual and temporal affairs, even to the highest echelon of the society....

Traditional Chinese edition of The House by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Roberto Innocenti. Innocenti is the recipient of the biannual Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2008. In Chinese. Distributed by Tsai Fong Books, Inc.

A stray cat finds a happy home in a kindergarten classroom.

Presents poems and brief biographical notes about well-known African Americans, including Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Langston Hughes, Marian Anderson, Malcolm X, and Billie Holiday.

Have you ever talked at length with an exterminator? Or had a heart-to-heart with an ice sculptor? Or waxed philosophical with an acrobat? No? Well, look inside.

Dog travels the world looking for the perfect place to live, meeting dogs of many breeds before finally returning to Washington, D.C., where he learns of a special family seeking a pet to live in their big, white house.

Who has kissed the most cobras? Eaten the most live scorpions? Sailed highest on a skateboard? Been stuck the longest in an elevator? These and 21 other vexing superlatives are the subject matter of this zany collection of verse by one of America's most well-loved poets, J. Patrick Lewis. Comic illustrations by Keith Graves make this the funniest, wackiest, rhyming-est book on the shelf.

Two poetry masters create a slice of American life, in renga form. This portrait of a day in the life of an American village is told in an ancient poetic form known as the renga (meaning "linked verse"), in which one poet writes a verse and another poet responds to that. Then the first poet adds another verse, and so on. Each verse links somehow with the one preceding it but not with the others. This means that each new verse takes the story in a completely different direction as each poetcomes up with a clever way to connect the new verse. Birds on a Wire, a Parents' Choice and IRA Teachers' Choice book, is a random romp around town.

Animals introduce opposites in a clever way.

"Robert Johnson was born in rural Mississippi and died young, leaving little behind except blues like no one sung the blues before him. A legend says that Robert sold his soul to the devil in return for becoming King of the Delta Blues."--From source other than the Library of Congress

Clever puns and elaborately detailed, surreal artwork illuminate a collection of comically grim verses that can’t help but tickle the funny bone. Reader, if I had more time I’d say au revoir in rhyme, Sayonara, ciao in verse — But I have to catch a hearse. Peek inside Once Upon a Tomb and find twenty-two poems, each of which tells, in hilarious verse, the story of an untimely demise — from a school principal to a bully, a food critic to a cafeteria lady, an underwear salesman to a soccer player. Complemented by Simon Bartram’s deadpan illustrations, J. Patrick Lewis’s cryptic tour of headstones and epitaphs is silly, spooky — and far from grave.