Big sister Kennedy and little sister Devon couldn't be more different. Their shared room has a clear divide down the middle. On one, musical theater-loving Kennedy keeps things tidy. On the other, heavy metal fan Devon looks like she lives in an exploded toy store. When baby sister Eve moves in, her contribution is crying. Constant. Ear-piercing. Crying.

The added stress pushes the older girls to their breaking point, and they get into their biggest fight yet. In response, Mom and Dad crack down, seizing all beloved electronics until Kennedy and Devon can find a way to get along. Now stuck together with no distractions except Eve's screaming, the two land on a desperate solution: tell Eve a bedtime story so epic that it puts her to sleep and gets her big sisters out of trouble.

Pizza aside, the only thing the girls have in common is their love of stories. But Kennedy's fairy tales make Devon want to barf, and Devon's nonsensical adventure stories make Kennedy want to tear her hair out. So they try to mash-up a story of true love, adventure, princesses, pirates, pirate-princesses, dragons, spiders, and...garbage trucks?

That's a lot of story to spin. Will their hilarious fairy tale remix solidify their sisterly bond or break it forever after?

Big sister Kennedy and little sister Devon couldn't be more different. Their shared room has a clear divide down the middle. On one, musical theater-loving Kennedy keeps things tidy. On the other, heavy metal fan Devon looks like she lives in an exploded toy store. When baby sister Eve moves in, her contribution is crying. Constant. Ear-piercing. Crying.

The added stress pushes the older girls to their breaking point, and they get into their biggest fight yet. In response, Mom and Dad crack down, seizing all beloved electronics until Kennedy and Devon can find a way to get along. Now stuck together with no distractions except Eve's screaming, the two land on a desperate solution: tell Eve a bedtime story so epic that it puts her to sleep and gets her big sisters out of trouble.

Pizza aside, the only thing the girls have in common is their love of stories. But Kennedy's fairy tales make Devon want to barf, and Devon's nonsensical adventure stories make Kennedy want to tear her hair out. So they try to mash-up a story of true love, adventure, princesses, pirates, pirate-princesses, dragons, spiders, and...garbage trucks?

That's a lot of story to spin. Will their hilarious fairy tale remix solidify their sisterly bond or break it forever after?

2021 Redbud Read-Aloud Book Award Masterlist

Writing a school report on sea cows? You might ask this sea cow what SHE thinks!

When an imaginative second-grader writes a school report about sea cows, the subject is not happy with her portrayal. Sea Cow--or Manatee, as she prefers to be called--comes to life on the pages of the report and decides to defend herself against unflattering comparisons to set the record straight with fascinating facts about manatees.

ILA 2021 Children's and Young Adults Book Award - Primary Nonfiction

A disgruntled seahorse fact-checks a school report about him.

When a child writes a report about a seahorse, the creature himself has a few things to say about the animals he's compared to. First of all, he is nothing like a land horse. His tail is much more useful than an opossum's tail. And his snout fits his face perfectly--unlike an anteater's snout.

Delivering fascinating facts along the way, the seahorse sets the record straight about what makes his species so special.​

Gray Squirrel has a problem. He can't find his nut, and he's desperate for help. So desperate that he's going to interrupt this autumnal tour of the forest, where cardinals eat berries that turn their feathers red, white-tailed deer lose their antlers, and wood frogs freeze... Yeah, all of that might be fascinating, but Squirrel needs his nut!

With a funny, exasperated hero like that of The Very Impatient Caterpillar, this meta picture book inspired by real squirrel behavior (caching!) delivers crowd-pleasing laughs as Gray Squirrel searches for his beloved nut and accidentally plants a tree. But this isn't the first lost nut, and it won't be the last...Hello, forest!

Hilarious speech-balloon dialogue makes this a dynamic and fun read-aloud--and the back of the book includes bonus educational material like additional forest facts, a food web diagram, and a bear safety song!

Gray Squirrel has a problem. He can't find his nut, and he's desperate for help. So desperate that he's going to interrupt this autumnal tour of the forest, where cardinals eat berries that turn their feathers red, white-tailed deer lose their antlers, and wood frogs freeze... Yeah, all of that might be fascinating, but Squirrel needs his nut!

With a funny, exasperated hero like that of The Very Impatient Caterpillar, this meta picture book inspired by real squirrel behavior (caching!) delivers crowd-pleasing laughs as Gray Squirrel searches for his beloved nut and accidentally plants a tree. But this isn't the first lost nut, and it won't be the last...Hello, forest!

Hilarious speech-balloon dialogue makes this a dynamic and fun read-aloud--and the back of the book includes bonus educational material like additional forest facts, a food web diagram, and a bear safety song!