Tony Johnston

Illustrations and easy-to-read text reveal the secrets of letters, including their power to create words of all kinds.

Told in verse, a boy encounters first grade--with all its peaks and valleys, but most of all with new friends.

A pioneer mother lovingly stitches a beautiful quilt which warms and comforts her daughter Abigail; many years later another mother mends and patches it for her little girl. Two little girls, generations apart, find comfort in the same family hand-stitched quilt, decorated with the tails of falling stars.

Rabbit outwits Coyote in this Zapotec tale which explains why coyotes howl at the moon.

A 700-year-old woman and an 800-year-old man, both witches, go searching on Halloween night for the pumpkin someone snitched from them.

As the heat of the desert day fades into night, various nocturnal animals, including bats, coyotes, and snakes, venture out to find food.

Describes a Mexican family preparing for and celebrating the Day of the Dead.

Each day, from September through November, brings glimpses of forest animals seeking food in preparation for the onset of winter, from a fox sniffing the last apple on the ground to a flock of wild turkeys that finds nothing.

With great gusto, a child's grandmother performs deep knee bends, consumes a breakfast of "huevos estrellados," and practices vocal exercises before going to work as a storyteller.

Lizzie meets an elderly man and his companion, Cecile, at the park, but Lizzie is afraid of dogs, so she relies on her new friend to help her take things one step at a time.