category: Children's Books

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The companion volume to MY DAD IS THE BEST PLAYGROUND

Emma and her grandpa, Pop, are tap-dancing pals. They dig-shuffle-chug through town and put on a clickity-clacking, tip-tapping show every year on Emma’s birthday. But Pop is getting old. He starts forgetting things, even Emma’s birthday. And he stops dancing. Can Emma help Pop’s feet remember how to dance? Clickity-clack, clickity-clack, stomp-stomp-clickity-clack. . . .

There is a tender sweetness in this title, as a young girl finds a way to reconnect with her beloved grandfather through their shared love of dancing.. When Emma notices that Pop’s feet can still remember how to dance, a quiet hope grows that other special memories survive. Endearing illustrations rendered in gouache and pencils show that even the smallest act may spark a memory in an Alzheimer’s sufferer.

Sarah Lynn’s three young sons taught her how to race toy cars. Together they’ve used their imaginations to create roads everywhere (couch, kitchen floor, dirt, sand, rug, and the bathtub, just for starters.) The idea for 1-2-3 Va-Va-Vroom! came to Sarah when she was teaching her oldest son to write numbers. They began imagining the pencil as a car drawing its own track.

Award-winning Michael-Paul Terranova graduated with honors from the Art Center College of Design. And with the launch of Curious Circus, http://curiouscircus.com/, he’s now a digital publisher of children’s picture books and apps, fully embracing and fostering the intersection of digital formats and technology. OH; and with augmented reality features to come!

This interactive environment makes Curious Circus the industry leader in online apps and concept picture books for children. Now, we’re taking Michael-Paul and Curious Circus into the printed arena. Think deceptively simple and endlessly entertaining content with lots of extension opportunities.

For example, here’s the Kirkus endorsement of MAX’S TEMPER TURNAROUND, which we’ve developed in book form to I’M MAX AND I’M MAD.

“A well-designed and humorous concept book shines with just a few well-chosen effects … Readers will be G-LA-D that they accompanied Max on his barely restrained rampage and subsequent cool down.”

Here’s a link to the app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/maxs-temper-turnaround/id455592472?mt=8

And the link to the Kirkus review: http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-paul-terranova/maxs-temper-turnaround/.

The SOUNDS WE MAKE is a basic exploration of assorted bodily sounds, including—and perhaps featuring—those considered “rude.”

And that’s just the beginning! In all of the books, there are vibrant graphics, big swaths of white space and bold, black energetic text. The effects are very simple yet very effective.

Michael-Paul currently lives in Southern California with his wife and daughter, two dogs and a private collection of children’s books that rivals that of most local libraries.

She’s named after a landform.

She learned to walk on the red carpet.

And now she’s playing hostess to the nation’s hottest pop star.

Desert McGraw hasn’t exactly had a normal upbringing. Her dad fronts the popular rock band Crossfire, and her mom is the group’s manager. Always on tour or sitting in on recording sessions, Desert leads a life that looks glamorous to most people.

But now that she’s sixteen and living in yet another new town — Miami, this time — Desert is more than ready to call one place home. There’s one problem, though: How do you know whom to trust — let alone what guy to hook up with — when all any-one wants is access to the band?

Funny, romantic, and filled with essential rock-star etiquette (the proper attire for cruising in a Jag convertible, how to introduce new friends to your leather-wearing dad, etc.), BACKSTAGE PASS is a look at what happens when real life meets every girl’s dream.

Four best friends, one graduation cruise, a week of partying.

Eight days of strife and storms . . .

It’s supposed to be the best eight days of their lives.

Bonds will be broken…

But when a fortune-teller predicts trouble the night before their trip,

One of you will not come home…

Fiona, Killian, Alma, and Yoli are left on edge, wondering what it could all mean.

Gaby Triana gets right to the heart of that thrilling, nerve-wracking, exhilarating, terrifying, amazing time that comes right after graduation, when the big question is: Where do we go from here?

Summer just started, and already I can’t wait to get out of here to begin my mother-free life at the University of Michigan in August. But until that happens, I’ll be teaching art at Camp Anhinga, same as last year. I start tomorrow, and Mom is anything but thrilled. Surprise, surprise. If it weren’t for my father, I’d never get to experience college away from home. I’d be stuck, taking classes locally, learning to cook and sew the holes in my brother’s underwear on the side, cultivating my domestic skills as a back-up career. Because that’s what a good cubanita does, you know, thinks of nothing but home. Yeah. Okay.

This is the story of Isabel Díaz, a Cuban-American who would rather just be an American, period. A funny and romantic summer read, as well as a touching story about discovering your roots, cubanita proves we all have room in us to become more than who we think we are.

Award-winning Gaby Triana’s WAKE THE HOLLOW, an eerie, gothic Legend of Sleepy Hollow reimagining set in the modern-day town, where Micaela must reconcile her ghostly visions with her supposed lineage as Washington Irving’s descendant, with the help of her former best friend turned crush …

Uncover the real legend…

Back to the Future meets Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Haley’s summer vacation takes a turn for the retro in this totally rad romantic fantasy

Summer officially sucks. Thanks to a stupid seizure she had a few months earlier, Haley’s stuck going on vacation with her dad and his new family to Disney’s Fort Wilderness instead of enjoying the last session of summer camp back home with her friends. Fort Wilderness holds lots of childhood memories for her father, but surely nothing for Haley. But then a new seizure triggers something she’s never before experienced—time travel—and she ends up in River Country, the campground’s long-abandoned water park, during its heyday.

The year? 1982.

And there—with its amusing fashion, “oldies” music, and primitive technology—she runs into familiar faces: teenage Dad and Mom before they’d even met. Somehow, Haley must find her way back to the twenty-first century before her present-day parents anguish over her disappearance, a difficult feat now that she’s met Jason, one of the park’s summer residents and employees, who takes the strangely dressed stowaway under his wing.

Seizures aside, Haley’s used to controlling her life, and she has no idea how to deal with this dilemma. How can she be falling for a boy whose future she can’t share?

Chloé Rodriguez values three things above all else—her family; her best friend, Rock; and Lolita, her Harley-Davidson 1200 Sportster. With a black body, blue airbrushed flames, and perfect sloping ape hangers, Lolita is Chloé’s last connection to her beloved uncle, Seth, who left her the bike when he died last summer. So when a failing chemistry grade threatens to separate Chloé from her motorcycle, she vows not to let that happen . . . no matter what.

Enter Gordon. Ridiculously organized, übersmart, and hot in a casual, doesn’t-know-it kind of way, Chloé’s peer tutor may have a thing or two to teach her besides chemistry. But she has to stop falling for Gordon . . . and get Rock to act mature whenever he’s around . . . and pass chemistry so she doesn’t lose Lolita forever. Just when Chloé thinks she’s got it all figured out, a bump in the road comes out of nowhere and sends her skidding.