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With these eight titles, you’ll be sure to find one that provides perfect inside entertainment for your four-year-old or our 14-year-old on a blustery winter day or night!
Picture Books
The Mice of Bistrot des Sept Frères
This story serves up a delightful recipe for a children’s book: take one adorable tale of Parisian mice who want to win the prize for the best cheese soup in France, add a full serving of the whimsical illustrations of Marie Letourneau, mix in a dash of French language and a sprinkling of Parisian café culture, and voilà! We have The Mice of Bistrot des Sept Frères (Bistro of Seven Brothers).
“With her lively text and expressive illustrations, Marie LeTourneau has created the recipe for a winning picture book, liberally spiced with French phrases and sprinkled with a helpful pronunciation guide.”
—Washington Parent
Cold Weather Tip: Read the book with your child, and then make the delicious soup recipe together and share with the whole family!
Adults think of childhood as a carefree time, but the truth is that children worry, and worry a lot, especially in our highly pressurized era.
This book addresses children’s worries with humor and imagination, as hilarious scenarios teach kids the use of perspective and the art of creative problem-solving.
“Whether the worries are big or small, real or silly, the central message of this book shines through: that things seem less worrisome when put into perspective, and a little creative thinking can solve most problems. The Worry figure, lurking somewhere in every illustration, brings an element of humor that will entertain kids while providing them with lessons of coping that will last a lifetime.”
— Patty Aubrye, President, Chicken Soup for the Soul
Cold Weather Tip: This is the perfect story for right before bed, especially during the colder months when shadows lengthen and night comes quickly.
Middle Grade
Join Billy, Daniel, Stephanie and Mark on an amazing, three-book adventure!
Mystery at Blackbeard’s Cove is set on Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Our four characters, right before Halloween, are exhausted from their trip to sea to give their eccentric friend Mrs. Nemmish the pirate burial she insisted on.
But now they are trapped in a tunnel, locked in by Zeek, local scoundrel and direct descendent of Israel Hands, who is racing against them to find the hidden treasure. Is the treasure’s location on the map that Zeek took from them, or could it be in the very tunnel where they are tripping over skeletons and struggling to find another way out?
In the next installment, Blackbeard and the Sandstone Pillar, our four protagonists encounter a few obstacles as they locate and return the pirate treasure, but nothing that a little ingenuity, the willingness to break a rule or two, and a handy forklift can’t overcome! But the kids also uncovered even deeper, ancient mysteries–the discovery of a third trunk and a strange sandstone–mysteries that Blackbeard’s ghost fears could bring the world to the brink of disaster.
In Blackbeard and the Gift of Silence, Daniel, Billy, Stefanie, and Mark have found the ancient pirate loot and are delivering it to its rightful owners in London. But the teens have only begun to scratch the surface of the deeper mysteries they have unwittingly uncovered, mysteries of the Stone of Scone, the Knights Templar, and a burglary at Westminster Abbey.
“Committed fans of pirate tales will enjoy this, along with girls who like books featuring female characters who aren’t afraid to face adventure head on.”
— Booklist
Cold Weather Tip: Have blankets at the ready so your young reader can burrow under them and use a flashlight to illuminate the pages–following our four heroes in and out of caves, deserted buildings, and mysteries that keep growing as the characters discover more about Blackbeard.
Young Adult
Teens will have trouble putting down this nonstop ride focused on surviving the eruption of a supervolcano!
In Ashfall, readers will follow Alex, who thinks that being left alone for the weekend means having the freedom to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence.
At the opening of Ashen Winter, it’s been over six months since the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano.
Alex and fellow survivor Darla have been staying with Alex’s relatives, trying to cope with the new reality of the primitive world. It’s also been six months of waiting for Alex’s parents to return from Iowa. Alex and Darla decide they can wait no longer and must retrace their journey into Iowa to find and bring back Alex’s parents to the tenuous safety of Illinois.
Sunrise brings us to almost a year after the eruption. Communities wage war on each other, gangs of cannibals roam the countryside, and what little government survived the eruption has collapsed completely. The ham radio has gone silent. Sickness, cold, and starvation are the survivors’ constant companions.
When it becomes apparent that their home is no longer safe and adults are not facing the stark realities, Alex and Darla must create a community that can survive the ongoing disaster, an almost impossible task requiring even more guts and more smarts than ever – and unthinkable sacrifice.
“In this chilling debut, Mullin seamlessly weaves meticulous details about science, geography, agriculture and slaughter into his prose, creating a fully immersive and internally consistent world scarily close to reality.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Cold Weather Tip: When reading about survival, inevitably you learn that food gets scarce and then, of course, your stomach growls. In preparation for a few hours of post-apocalyptic reading, have munchies at arms length. May we suggest an Ashfall-inspired recipe or two?