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Tucked away in the back of Kids at Heart Toys is our book room. Lining our shelves is a carefully chosen selection of literature for children of all ages. We have books for baby: both soft cover and board book. Our picture books will inspire imagination, introduce cultural diversity and impart knowledge of the world. We also have beginning books and young adult titles to encourage the young reader.
We have our own personal book-buyer, with ten years experience selecting the very best books. She has an expansive knowledge of children's literature, both classic and contemporary.
Our books will remain trusted friends in your child's library and encourage a love of reading. Here are a few books we've come to love.
Seattle artist and author Kate Endle makes beautiful collages out of paint and paper. In her latest book, What is Green?, all of the colors are explored in vivid detail with objects that baby sees everyday. The large text will help encourage early reading concepts. Both you and baby are sure to enjoy reading this charming book.
Burt Dow, Deep-Water Man was the last book written by famed children's author, Robert McCloskey. Set in Maine, Burt Dow is a retired fisherman living with his sister and his pet, the Giggling Gull. One day Burt and Giggling Gull are out fishing in Burt's leaky boat when a storm takes them out to sea. Burt shelters from the storm in a whale, he has recently befriended. Once the storm is over, Burt must figure out how to leave the belly of the whale. With a little ingenuity, Burt and Giggling Gull find a way out.
Many of the characters in this book are based upon real people who lived in the community of Dear Isle, Maine, where McCloskey wrote many of his books, such as Blueberries for Sal and Make Way for Ducklings.
Oscar is a curious kitten. When Oscar hears a blackbird singing in the meadow, Bat swoops in to talk to him about sound. A sudden thunderstorm and a visiting cow give Oscar lots of opportunities to learn about sounds that are loud or soft, near or far, deep or high. This clever first science book uses everyday sounds to teach preschoolers about the physics of sound and a great introduction to the wonderful world of science. It's refreshing to have a good story book to help answer all their questions!
An endearing look at the beauty of nature throughout the seasons by celebrated Swedish author, Elsa Beskow. Beskow was one of the founders of Swedish Children's Literature and her books have been in print for almost 100 years. Around the Year is a treasury of simple and joyful verse. This book will become an heirloom upon your shelf.
Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn’t go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his niece, the Princess Saralinda. She was warm in every wind and weather, but he was always cold. His hands were as cold as his smile, and almost as cold as his heart. He wore gloves when he was asleep, and he wore gloves when he was awake, which made it difficult for him to pick up pins or coins or the kernels of nuts, or to tear the wings from nightingales.
So begins James Thurber’s sublimely revamped fairy tale, The 13 Clocks, in which a wicked Duke, who imagines he has killed time, and the Duke’s beautiful niece, for whom time seems to have run out, both meet their match, courtesy of an enterprising and very handsome prince in disguise. Readers young and old will take pleasure in this tale of love forestalled but ultimately fulfilled, admiring its upstanding hero (”He yearned to find in a far land the princess of his dreams, singing as he went, and possibly slaying a dragon here and there”) and unapologetic villain (”We all have flaws,” the Duke said. “Mine is being wicked”), while wondering at the enigmatic Golux, the mysterious stranger whose unpredictable interventions speed the story to its necessarily happy end.
James Thurber's witty short stories and lumpy cartoons were a popular mainstay of The New Yorker magazine in the 1930s and 1940s. He collaborated with both Dorothy Parker and E.B. White. A Midwestern boy with an urbane twist, Thurber mixed comical reminiscences of his Ohio childhood with wry observations on modern times.
