Six Poetry Favorites

It would be easy to fill up a list with titles by Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, Eugene Field, Edward Lear and Robert Louis Stevenson.

But since many of us already know about these amazing authors and their books, I've come up with a list of six others that aren't as well-known, but are sure to make "toenails twinkle" just the same.*

Fold Me a Poem

By Kristine O'Connell George and illustrated by Lauren Stringer

Harcourt Children's Books, 2005

$16, ages 4-8, 56 pages

A boy folds and plays with origami animals in this imaginative collection of 32 brief poems. Stringer's acrylic paintings are magical. On one page, an origami elephant emerges from a crumpled lunch bag and on another a floral-paper frog takes the place of a water lily on a floating leaf.

The Underwear Salesman and Other Jobs for Better or Verse

By J. Patrick Lewis, illustrated by Serge Bloch

Simon & Schuster, 2009

$16.99, ages 9-12, 64 pages

In this hilarious collection of poems, Lewis explores almost every job imaginable, from exterminator to paleontologist to bubble bath tester, while Bloch's ink cartoons leap around the page and delight with whimsical touches of collage. My favorite: the fashion designer with parsley hair.

Here's a Little Poem:

A Very First Book of Poetry

Collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters, illustrated by Polly Dunbar

Candlewick Press, 2007

$21.99, ages baby/preschool, 112 pages

It's hard to think of a sweeter anthology than this one. Rosy-cheeked children tumble from page to page in this collection of more than 60 short verse by talents ranging from Margaret Wise Brown to Langston Hughes. No one captures the joy in a child like Dunbar.

Today at the Bluebird Cafe:

A Branchful of Birds

By Deborah Ruddell, illustrated by Joan Rankin

Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2007

$15.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages

Ruddell captures the personalities of more then 20 kinds of birds, from the high-flying Kingfisher to the sequined hummingbird, while Rankin's watercolors dance on the page. My favorite, when penguins in knit hats dream of flight. On the last page, you see them with ostriches and fish, floating from helium balloons in the sky.

I Heard it from Alice Zucchini:

Poems About the Garden

By Jaunita Havill, illustrated by Christine Davenier

Chronicle Books, 2006

$15.95, ages 9-12, 32 pages

A garden fairy flits around the vegetable garden in this enchanting collection of poems, brought to life by Davenier's whimsical watercolors. Among the many gems: "Dainty Doily Dill Weed / dances in the breeze, / waving yellow blossoms, / calling to the peas."

This is Just to Say:

Poems of Apology and Forgiveness

By Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2007

$16, ages 9-12, 48 pages.

Sixth-grade characters write poems to say they're sorry in this funny and touching collection, cleverly illustrated by Zagarenski. In one poem a student apologize for belting a ball at his friend in dodge ball; in another, for stealing a jelly donut from the teacher's lounge.

* This wonderful phrase was coined by the late Welsh poet Dylan Thomas when asked how poetry makes him feel.

Going Green: 10 Books to Inspire Kids

"So many fail because they don't get started -- they don't go. They don't overcome inertia. They don't begin." (W. Clement Stone)

It's hard to accept what's happening to change Earth -- the pollution, the rising temperatures, the harm to creatures and places we always assumed would be around.

But it's also difficult to see how any one of us has the power to stop these bad things from happening. The problems are so big and complex, we ask ourselves, "Will our actions to help clean things up ever amount to enough?"

Experts say, absolutely. If we all do something for Earth every day, then soon we'll be doing it together, and the power of one action will multiply. But how do we motivate ourselves to believe this too and change the patterns we live by?

Perhaps we just have to act as if every action matters, even if we have nothing immediate to show for it and are unsure of what we can accomplish. The late writer-editor Dorothea Brande said, "All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail."

As Earth Day approaches, I've gathered 10 books, most new, a few older, that help kids do just this: try to change the world in anyway they can. They inspire children to care about what happens, think through the problems we face and recognize that even the smallest act of conservation can go a long way.

Each of the books below offers a gentle message. The first two are poignant, showing some of the problems we face, but with hope and sometimes humor. The next three are exploratory and do a great job explaining global warming and solar energy, while the last five are motivational and convey how far-reaching one action can be.

Here Comes the Garbage Barge!

By Jonah Winter, illustrated by Red Nose Studio

Schwartz & Wade Books, 2010

$17.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages

Showing how ridiculous the trash problem can become, Winter and Red Nose Studio satirize Long Island's 1987 attempt to unload 3,168 tons of rubbish on someone else's shore in this delightfully wry book.

As if staging sets for a Claymation film, Red Nose Studios recreates with clay, wire, cloth and found objects the notorious garbage barge fiasco, and with such humor, you'd hardly believe an event like this could ever have happened.

Over the course of six weeks, the smelly barge pulled by a salty old tugboat captain attempts to port in one community after the next, only to be greeted by scowls and armed resistance (including a Texas Ranger straddling a horse in a speedboat) along the East Coast and beyond.

At first the plan is to bring the garbage to North Carolina and pay farmers to bury it on their land, but when word gets out to officials, a police boat swerves in front of the barge and forces it away. Then the barge heads to New Orleans, only to be stopped by the Coast Guard before it can go up the Mississippi.

Finally, after being turned away by gunpoint from the coast of Mexico and Belize, even the captain can't stand the stink anymore -- he dons an oxygen mask -- and calls his boss, a Long Island mobster, to say he's quit. His boss tells him to head back to Islip and try a few places along the way, but of course no one wants the festering trash.

The barge eventually pulls into New York Harbor, where it's met by the Statue of Liberty holding her nose and a restraining order to keep it from docking. Not even Islip will take it back, but after a heated legal battle, Brooklyn agrees to incinerate the trash down in size and bury the rest where it came from.

Some say the event, fictionalized here for the sake of good storytelling, brought to light the nation's landfill problem and spurred the recycling movement.

Best Parts: As the barge nears the Florida shore, the tugboat captain is greeted by a flotilla of pasty-skinned retirees in float rings (one a rubber duck) shaking their fists.

Later off the coast of Belize, two stone-faced soldiers stand on either side of a little mustachioed general on a booster stool, shouting "Kungo," which in New Yorker slang means, "Fuhgeddaboudit."

The caricatures are hysterical and bring levity to a sad episode in history.

Flip over the sleeve of Here Comes the Garbage Barge! to see how the book was made and check out the trailer below of Red Nose Studio building the sets!

Bag in the Wind

By Ted Kooser, illustrated by Barry Root

Candlewick Press, 2010

$17.99, ages 4-8, 48 pages

Pulitzer Prize winner Kooser delivers a quietly powerful tale of a plastic bag unearthed in a landfill that speaks to all the forgotten trash that's slow to decompose.

When a tractor turning a pile of garbage frees a plastic bag from the dump, the bag is swept over a fence, into a tree, then pecked loose by a blackbird, only to become lodged on a barbed-wire fence, where it's found by a girl looking for a bag to collect aluminum cans.

Thus begins a fascinating and eye-opening journey that will inspire readers to reuse plastic bags and eventually stop using them altogether. At story's end, readers learn that it can take 15 years to 1,000 for one bag to break down -- a sobering statistic given that the average American uses at least 350 per year.

A synopsis of the book on the inside flap describes the story as "full of happenstance and connection, neglect and conservation," and echoes the book's power: Kooser doesn't try to tell readers what they should do. He sort of nudges them to think about all of the plastic bags that have nowhere to go and what they might do to change it.

Best Parts: Kooser's words drift along, gently telling the bag's tale, and blend so beautifully with the softness of Root's images that I came away feeling as though I had read a wordless picture book, though the narrative isn't particularly spare.

At times Root's images of the runaway bag were so familiar, they were almost uncomfortable to look at. Who hasn't seen a bag tumble along a ditch, get flattened against a fence or get caught up in a branch? But how many of us go chasing after it? We may be accustomed to seeing a bag on the loose, but do we stop our cars to deal with it?

I was particularly struck by the image of a plastic bag being spit out by the tires of a passing vehicle, which seems to me like the ultimate indignity of paying no mind to trash on the road. I found myself humming the sobering melody to Kansas's Dust in the Wind -- but thinking that a bag in the wind doesn't have to be an old song we've heard before.

How the World Works: A Hands-On Guide to Our Amazing Planet

By Christian Dorion,

illustrated by Beverley Young

Templar Books, 2010

$17.99, ages 9-12, 18 pages

This cleverly designed science book puts the processes that guide Earth into a child's hands.

Pull-outs, flaps, pop-ups and even a mini flip book illustrate the basics of Earth's activities: how Earth began, how seasons change, how plates shape the planet, why weather changes, how the carbon cycle works and more.

There are also fascinating facts that meander along the edges of pages or appear in little boxes, as well as answers to questions a reader might ask, such as "What if there was no moon?" The reader need only pull a tab to see the earth spinning in a blur.

Best Parts: What better way to teach a child about his impacts on the environment than a lift-the-flap that breaks down the carbon footprint of a cheeseburger?

Lift every layer from the bun to the pickles (condiments excluded) to find out how much carbon is emitted to produce each one, and eventually the whole burger. (A grand total of 4 lbs., 2 oz. of carbon, the weight of 19 Quarter Pounders!)

Equally fascinating is a fold-out of tips we've learned from nature; for example, the reason engineers put ridges on the blades of wind turbines is because they observed that the bumpy fins on humpback whales reduce their drag in water.

Other favorites include a mini flip book that shows how the continents of Earth slid over millions of years, and pull-outs that show mountains being pushed up and magma oozing out of the earth as plates separate.

I loved this interactive book for all that it does to make the earth's processes interesting and easy to grasp.

The Magic School Bus and The Climate Challenge

By Joanna Cole, illustrated by Bruce Degen

Scholastic Press, 2010

$16.99, ages 9-12. 48 pages

No one brings children into science quite like Ms. Frizzle and her latest ride around the globe is an eye-opening journey for children just learning about global warming.

In this fact-packed picture book, Ms. Frizzle decides her old earth sciences book is too dated for her students to use and loads her class into the flying school bus to see what's changed in the planet's health since the book was published.

While flying over Earth, the class observes ice melting, sea levels rising, farmlands drying out, and animals being pushed out of their homes, and compares these images to pictures in Frizzle's book from when she was 9. By trip's end, the class not only understands what's going on, but learns how to slow warming and rally others to use less energy.

Best Parts: To explain how gases in the atmosphere can make Earth warmer, Ms. Frizzle instructs the class to jump out of the bus onto slides of sunbeams.

As the sunbeams gently land on Earth, they warm the soil, causing heat to rise. The heat then pushes the kids back up into the sky until they bump into greenhouse gases and are sent earthward again to make the ground even hotter.

An important clarification accompanies the image: greenhouses gases aren't all bad -- Earth would freeze up without some -- but because so many fossil fuels are being burned, too many gases are backing up in the atmosphere.

Other highlights include the Magic School Bus morphing into a hybrid vehicle near the end of the book and a comparison of the amount of CO2 each person contributes annually to the weight of 8 hippos.

The Kids' Solar Energy Book Even Grown-Ups Can Understand

By Tilly Spetgang, illustrated by Malcolm Wells

Imagine Publishing, Inc., 2009

$14.95, ages 9-12, 88 pages

A comic book about solar energy that's printed all in green. What an ingenious way to get kids motivated about sun power and spur them to try energy experiments of their own.

This stand-out book by journalist Spetgang and renowned architect Wells, first published in 1982 before global warming made headlines then rereleased in 2009 to coincide with the upsurge in public concern, will have readers cracking up as they learn.

Rather than passively learn about the issue, readers hang out in a 6th Grade classroom as their teacher, Mrs. Robinson, talks about issues surrounding solar energy, including why it's not more popular even though it's free, it's always available and it doesn't pollute the air.

On the top of the page, readers listen to the teacher explain how solar energy works, what it takes to get solar collectors in place and how the technologies operate, while below they see line drawings of kids at their desks bantering back and forth about what she's telling them.

When Mrs. Robinson brings up the subject of the energy crunch, one kid slumped in his chair ribs, "Yeah. It's a new candy bar," to which the girl ahead of him turns around and corrects, "I thought it was when two oil tankers collide."

But this isn't just a smart-alecky group; they're also working through what she's saying and imagining what it could mean. When Mrs. Robinson explains how photovoltaic solar cells can convert light to electricity, a girl raises her hand and suggests, "Like light bulbs in reverse."

The comic relief helps to bring home the subject: in one frame a boy looks down at his smoking feet, regretting that he walked on asphalt, which like passive solar systems in houses (inside walls, barrels of water, bins of rocks) soaks up heat during the day and releases it later.

You never actually see the teacher and somehow this makes her voice carry over all of the chatter. It's fun to take it all in, then review the lessons by reading just what the teacher says (which blots out the wise cracks, but allows you to focus in on all the facts.)

Best Parts: As the book begins, Mrs. Robinson offers such a thoughtful lead-in to the topic that you can't help but become engaged in what she's saying.

"This beautiful blue-green planet of mountains and oceans and skyscrapers and great beasts of the jungle…all yours," she says. "Have you ever thought of it that way? You may be about 12 years old and not feel as if you count in any special way outside your family. But, in the wink of an eye, you will be 18, 23, 32."

If I was a teacher, I'd be scribbling down all the great lines to use in my class. My favorite: "How do you catch sunbeams to make them work for you?"

365 Penguins

By Jean-Luc Fromental, illustrated by Joelle Jolivet,

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2006

$17.95, ages 4-8, 48 pages

Bold graphics of penguins accumulating in the house of a family of four highlight this unique book about one scientist's offbeat solution to help penguins relocate from the South Pole.

In this large-format book, the family gets a package in the mail every day of the year containing a penguin and tries to figure out how to keep them all happy, healthy and organized.

First the family tries arranging them in file cabinets, then stacking them into a cube until the four become so overwhelmed that they begin to live penguin, think penguin and become penguin.

Finally after a year, Uncle Victor, the ecologist, shows up in his parka and Birkenstocks to explain the mystery and trucks all but one of the penguins (a total of 364) to the North Pole.

But now that family life is returning to normal, what's this big, new package at the front door?

Best Parts: Jolivet's images, all in black, white, orange and blue, pull you into the mounting chaos, as an unprepared family tries to keep track of a fast-growing colony of endangered birds which they know very little about.

I loved the absurdity of the father trying to stack 216 penguins into a cube shape and thinking he could file them away into a cabinet, and how excited my 7-year-old son got every time the family tried to figure out how many penguins they'd organized into a cube or drawers.

Fromental poses a multiplication problem for the reader to figure out, then hides the answer upside down at the bottom of the page. Adding to the fun, readers are invited find a blue-footed penguin tucked in among the flock.

Uncle Victor's imaginative, yet dubious scheme to save penguins shows how difficult it is to help threatened species and how desperate the situation can become.

We Planted a Tree

By Diane Muldrow, illustrated by Bob Staake

Golden Books, 2010

$17.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages

You don't need to plug it in. All you do is plant it and give it water. A tree, one of the most efficient air cleaners we have, and perhaps the most sublime.

In this rosy, exuberant book, author Muldrow and award-winning illustrator Staake celebrate the simple act of planting a tree and get us energized to plant one too.

The story follows two families of four, one from a typical American city, the other from rural Kenya, as they nurture a sapling and follow its growth through the years.

From the moment each family buries the root ball, their eyes and smiles grow wide and joyous, reflecting all of the possibility that the trees hold.

Each day sunshine pours onto leaves, bringing food to the trees, and soon plump buds appear at the tips of branches and pink blossoms spring open.

As summer settles in, the American children sit under a cooling canopy of leaves beside their napping dog; the branches are like broad shoulders and it feels as though the tree watches over for them.

Across the world, the Kenyan family tends a vegetable garden they've planted near their tree. They know the tree will keep soil from blowing away and help rainwater collect in the ground, and are thankful to the tree for helping them grow their own food.

At times the story cuts away from the two families to show other people and animals enjoying the splendor of trees, thus widening the celebration.

In a big city greenway, a broad tree shadows the path of joggers and horse-drawn carriage, as children run around a baseball diamond surrounded by trees that help to cleanse their air (a wonderful opportunity to explain to kids how trees remove the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use it to make wood for their growth).

Then on the next page, an elderly lady gazes at the beauty of her Grecian coast as workers fill baskets with apples, oranges -- and lemons -- from her trees.

(Those familiar with Staakes' New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book The Red Lemon and his acclaimed book The Donut Chef will be charmed by Muldrow's reference to lemons and the image of a roly-poly baker carrying a cake into the garden.)

Best Parts: The energy that builds from one illustration to the next propels our excitement about planting a tree, and by the time we see a girl swing from a stout old tree near the end of the book, our hearts are filled with awe.

Girls Gone Green

By Lynn Hirshfield, foreword by Hayden Panettiere

Puffin Books, 2010

$11.99 pbk., ages 10 and up, 208 pages

Hip and stylish, this cause-inspiring book is packed with stories of teen girls making green choices in their daily lives as well as tips for readers to be green too.

After each girl's account of going green, adult mentors and eco-minded actresses offer advice, guidance and helpful websites to get readers involved.

Amy Galper, founder of Buddha Nose, an organic line of body-care products, gives directions to make a honey mask and sugar scrub, while Juno actress Ellen Page shares how to host a planting party -- all you need are some empty egg crates, dirt, a few spoons, a packet of organic seeds and your best buddies.

Readers will be inspired by 18-year-old Alberta Nells's heart-felt speeches to stop a ski resort from being developed on mountains held sacred by Native American tribes and 16-year-old Savannah Pope and Rachel Pelletier's award-winning campaign to erect a wind turbine at their Vermont high school.

Spurred by an assignment in their environmental studies class, the Vermont teens decided to enter the 2007 Ben & Jerry's Lick Global Warming contest after their school turned down their idea for aesthetic reasons.

"The administration felt that the wind turbine would be an eyesore on campus," Pope writes. "…We decided then and there that we would win…and get enough positive publicity that it would make it difficult for our school's administration to turn us down."

The teens researched turbines, wrote grants and came up with a plan to auction off native trees to help fund it, and in the end not only won the contest, but convinced the administration that wind energy would save it thousands of dollars annually in electricity costs and reduce the school's CO2 emissions by 5,000 pounds per year.

Getting a turbine built at school might sound a bit overwhelming to some, but there are lots of other ways readers can help care for Earth -- whether it's wearing a stylish vintage dress to the prom, making a sandwich tote from recycled fabric, buying recycled school supplies or (and they'll love this) educating their parents about wise energy use.

In a section "Tips to help your parents kick gas," Colette Brooks, head of the Big Imagination Group, explains the benefit of trading in the family's gas vehicle for a good used diesel car (diesel engines can go for up to 300,000 miles before they need an overhaul.)

Best Parts: There were so many amazing stories of ordinary girls standing their ground for the environment that readers will have a tough time choosing favorites.

My favorite, however, is the story of the wind turbine. How two girls managed to get a 105-foot wind mill up and running on school grounds -- and found $40,000 to make it happen -- is amazing and brings home what a little moxie can do for someone.

This fun, easy-to-navigate book makes being green popular, fashionable and just plain smart.

31 Ways to Change the World

By We Are What We Do

Candlewick Press, 2010

$8.99 pbk, ages 8-12, 80 pages

Who thought helping Earth could be so fun?

This clever handbook gives little ways to make the world cleaner and happier, from lowering the thermostat at home (and slipping on a sweater) to using stuff until it's worn out (rather than throwing it out for something fancier).

The book comes from the London-based movement We Are What We Do, which encourages ordinary people to take on environmental and social problems through the slogan, "Small Actions x Lots of People = Big Change."

While many of the ideas will be familiar to kids (like turning off lights and being kind to others), each action is introduced in a way that is catchy and contagious.

Action #7 asks kids to look closer at their world and notice things no one else does, and conveys this idea with a two-page spread designed by the creator of Where's Waldo, British illustrator Martin Handford.

Readers are asked to find 10 images representing positive actions (along with the grinning man in the bobble hat), which gets them engaged in the world before them in a fun way.

Best Parts: Action #18 really grabbed my attention because at first I thought I was going to disagree with it, but as I read further I realized where it was headed and immediately wanted to make it my own.

The action, "Don't Sing in the Shower," is geared to getting kids out of the shower faster and offers an interesting fact: if all the kids in a class cut their shower time from seven minutes to two for one year, they could fill a swimming pool with the water they saved!

The authors end with the snappy catch phrase: "Take shorter showers. Save your singing for the rain," along with a humorous incentive that sleepy teens will surely love: "(P.S. Shorter showers also mean more time to sleep in. Which is almost as good as saving the world.)"

For more great ideas, click We Are What We Do under my "Blogs and Links I'm Following."

The Solar Car Book

By Doug Stillinger

Klutz, 2002

$19.95 spiral-bound, ages 9-12, 48 pages

Does your child's head snap in the direction of every SMART car on the road? Does he think the latest innovations in renewable energy are just awesome?

Then chances are he'll flip for this simple kit for a sun-powered car.

When my three boys set up their solar car, it began spinning its wheels the moment they walked out of the patio door into a sunny Colorado spring day.

Along with everything you need to build a basic vehicle, the kit comes with a book of instructions, trouble-shooting tips, fun ways to run the car, as well as quick facts about solar chips, motors and more. (Just be sure you have a tiny screwdriver on hand for assembly.)

Best Parts: Though the car doesn't move fast, and has trouble with inclines and bumps, our boys were in awe that it didn't require batteries or have exhaust burping out the back.

They were equally fascinated to see how quickly the car stopped when their shadows crossed its path.

For my husband and I, the reward was seeing our boys energized by the potential that lies ahead -- not only for collecting solar energy, but harnessing other clean energy.

The Night Fairy

Written by Laura Amy Schlitz,

illustrated by Angela Barrett

Candlewick Press, 2010

$16.99, ages 9-12, 128 pages.

After a feisty young fairy loses her wings, she tries to coax other creatures into carrying her on their backs until a hummingbird teaches her that not everyone has to do what she wants.

In this delightful tale by Newbery Medal winner Schlitz, a bat pup on the hunt for food mistakes a night fairy named Flory for a moth and bites her wings, sending her falling from the sky onto a cherry tree.

Crushed and aching, Flory's wings are beyond repair, but Flory is a nimble little thing and manages to crawl up into an abandoned nesting box higher in the tree and hole up inside until she can figure out what do.

Though just shy of three months old, Flory is headstrong and doesn't take long to decide what to do, and since she now thinks bats are horrid creatures, she wants to get as far away from them as she can.

Too young to cast a spell to grow new wings, Flory must find a way to live in the woods so that she won't be preyed upon by bats and decides to switch her waking hours from night to day.

But being a day fairy isn't easy when you're born for nighttime -- the sunshine makes Flory's eyes water and dries her skin -- yet Flory is used to making do and with the exception of bats, isn't afraid of much.

Like all night fairies, Flory was fledged just seven days after she was born and never had anyone to guide her -- mother fairies don't look after their young, so it's up to fairy babes to make their way in the world, which forces them to be intrepid.

Now that she can see what daytime looks like, Flory is taken in by the blue of the sky, and the colors and energy of a garden below. The garden belongs to a giant, and though day fairies fear giants, she doesn't feel a bit intimidated by her, and the giant, who seems small for a giant, seems oblivious to Flory.

But Flory still has a big problem. Given that she's only as tall as an acorn, gathering food by foot would be slow and arduous, so Flory decides she must get another creature to take her where she needs to go and in no time at all, Flory finds a squirrel do just that.

At first the squirrel startles her, sniffing around the nesting box, but Flory discovers she can tame him with a stinging spell and cajoles him into carrying her on his head to a feeder that he can't get into. In exchange, Flory shares the seeds she frees from the tube.

Soon, Flory thinks of all kinds of deals she can make with the squirrel, whom she names Skuggle, such as getting him to gnaw off a thorn in exchange for her spearing suet for him to eat -- though she isn't terribly kind to him.

The squirrel is also very single-minded and would have eaten Flory had she not provided him with food.

Still, the two are growing accustomed to each other. Since Flory doesn't have other night fairies to teach her manners and since Skuggle doesn't have manners to teach Flory, the two don't seem to mind the other being rude.

In fact, they've grown quite accustomed to each other, perhaps even friendly, though neither knows what that means.

But Flory isn't satisfied riding a big lumbering squirrel. She wants to ride on the back of a hummingbird -- a graceful ride with wings that quiver in the air -- though she knows that hummingbirds are known to be aloof, even nasty.

Flory decides to hang out at a hummingbird feeder to get their attention, but is ignored by one bird after the next until one day something horrible happens and she gets her chance to force one of them to shuttle her around.

To her surprise, the hummingbird refuses to make a deal with Flory and challenges the fairy to do what's right.

Any child who's ever wished she was small enough to scamper among the branches of a tree will adore this story, and be warmed by the lessons Flory learns: to act with kindness and be willing to forgive, even if you're afraid to at first.

Schlitz, a librarian most of her life, won the 2008 Newbery for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!, while Angela Barrett illustrated the breathtaking 2007 remake of Paul Gallico's classic tale The Snow Goose and Max Eilenberg's 2006 adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.

Taking a Break from Technology: How-Tos For Making Your Own Fun

Do you ever feel like your computer has a magnetic pull on your kids? Or that if you looked closely enough while they played Xbox, you might see their eyes spiral?

Don't get me wrong, technology is wonderful and the better our kids get at using it, the more prepared they'll be when it's time to send them out into the world.

But wouldn't it be nice if they weren't quite so smitten with all these gadgets? If the simple stuff we did as kids -- carving soap bars, building Popsicle stick houses and pushing trucks over dirt piles all afternoon -- made our kids as satisfied?

While many of us limit how long our kids stay on gaming systems, cutting them off can be brutal. The hold these things have on them -- the adrenaline they fuel -- can leave them overstimulated when their allotted time is up.

To help ease them back into doing things that require more initiative, I've spotlighted two great guides that are filled with crafts and games that many of us did as kids, but that our kids may not have had a chance to get to.

How to Do Nothing With Nobody All Alone By Yourself

by Robert Paul Smith, illustrated by Elinor Goulding Smith

Tin House Books, reissued 2010

Ages 9-12, $14.95, 132 pages

This classic 1958 guide reintroduces kids to those natural urges they have to turn random objects into crazy great stuff, like thread spools into army tanks and peach pits into turtles.

Readers will love that everything in this book was invented by kids and passed along by kids, that nothing costs money to make and that each of the projects is a seat-of-the-pants creation.

At one time or another, every idea in this book came from a kid who decided to make something for no real reason other than he had a whim and he went with it.

"There are no classes to learn these things, no teachers to teach them, you don't need any help from your mother or your father or anybody," Smith writes. "The rule about this book is there's no hollering for help."

But just some caution. This isn't a book for the younger ones. A chapter's worth is dedicated to a pocket knife lesson in mumbly-peg, a game of skill in which you flip a Boy Scout knife off and over your hands, and later Smith shows how to turn a forked branch into a slingshot and fashion a rubber-band gun.

Don't worry, though, this isn't a reckless how-to; it's just very 1950s. From the get-go, Smith talks straight to the reader: "Once you have built them my way, you may find a better way to build them, but first time, do them the way it says."

Parents may want to review safety rules, however, and if they're feeling nostalgic for their childhood days of whittling away at this or that, don't miss the introduction by the NPR Weekend Edition's literary detective Paul Collins.

Best Parts: Having plucked many pussy willow buds on my way to elementary school and imagined them to be little furry creatures, I was particularly drawn to Smith's lesson on how to turn them into fluffy bees with paper, a pen and a dab of glue.

The Girl Mechanic: Classic Crafts, Games & Toys to Build

The Editors of Popular Mechanics

Hearst Books, 2009

Ages 9-12, $9.95, 240 pages.

This clever how-to, compiled from early editions of Popular Mechanics magazine, is packed with so many fantastical projects your girls won't know where to begin.

With more than 100 time-tested project to choose from, they'll be flipping with glee from one page to the next, then rummaging through recycling boxes and closets for parts to get started.

Though some crafts, like a pixie bank made from a mailing tube can be done on their own, many of the crafts like a tea party serving cart are elaborate and will require adult skills and ingenuity.

Frequently, the directions are limited to a diagram with measurements and a short write-up, and seem meant more as a starting point then a detailed how-to.

But that's part of what makes this book so charming. It inspires girls to put their own spin on projects, and encourages parents and girls to figure out things together and try something new.

While a few of the projects are familiar, like cutting a five-pointed star from paper or making favors out of paper tubes, most you won't find in a typical kid's craft book.

For example, there are directions to turn a wooden frame into a loom for weaving rags into rugs, convert a cardboard box into a geometric drawing machine with gears similar to a Spirograph, cast bookends from their hands with plaster and even build a bamboo cage for a wooden bird.

The grandest projects (and perhaps the most alluring) are a dollhouse mansion with working elevator (and tiny fine furnishings), miniature golf course, jointed wooden pony, wooden merry-go-round and Venetian swing.

If your child happens to be a boy, check out these other great books in the series, The Boy Mechanic: 200 Classic Things to Build and The Boy Mechanic Makes Toys: 159 Games, Toys, Tricks and Other Amusements.

Best Parts: I particularly loved the section "Entertaining Toy Time," which shows how to transform a broomstick into a wooden man on a string and build a scooter from blocks of wood, old roller skate wheels and a door hinge.

The Heart and the Bottle

Written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

Philomel Books, 2010

$17.99, ages 4 and up, 32 pages

When the one person who understands her most passes away, a girl closes her heart up in a bottle so it can't be hurt anymore, only to realize years later that life is too empty without it.

As you read Jeffers's amazing story, you feel the girl's heart filling with joy, then draining with sadness and finally finding solace as she navigates through the pain of loss to find a way to start over.

Achingly beautiful and a must for any child or adult confronting grief, the story opens with the girl at the happiest she can be, devouring every magical thing about life, and sharing her excitement with an aging man who we assume is her grandpa.

The man with the cane is always available to her, watching patiently as she marvels at a flower in the woods and listening as she explodes with thoughts of swimming with a whale or wonders aloud whether a boat could slide off the earth into the universe.

On one page, the man sits in his big armchair, fielding the questions that seem to burst out of her, and on another, he lays beside her under a canopy of stars, pointing to the big dipper as the girl imagines a shooting star is a flaming bee streaking across the sky.

At times, no words pass between them. They just are -- the man in a row boat and the girl floating nearby on her back in the water, taking in the wonders around them.

Then one day, the girl draws a picture of the whale she longs to swim with and races over to the big chair to share it with the man, but the chair is empty.

There is a permanence to the emptiness and she knows the man has passed away.

The girl sits motionless, staring at the chair as the sky outside fades to night and only a stream of moonlight fills the room. The picture lays forgotten on the floor behind her.

Unsure of how to go on, the girl withdraws within herself, closing her heart up in a bottle to keep it safe.

Though her heart is never far from her (the bottle hangs around her neck), it is far enough that she doesn't have to feel anything and for awhile this seems to work for her.

But in truth the girl has lost more than she realizes.

Now grown, she no longer notices the stars or the sea, or much of anything except the bottle, which has grown heavy and awkward around her neck. Yet she accepts the burden because she thinks her heart is safe.

Then one day the woman happens along a little girl on the beach building a castle out of sand. The little girl wonders aloud if an elephant could swim in the sea and suddenly it occurs to the woman what she must do.

Jeffers's book pulls you in, but never overwhelms you with sadness; it leaves you feeling that you too can get through the worst and continue on.

His art style, so spare and gentle, tempers the sorrow that unfolds, while the symbolism in the book resonates -- the empty chair in a darkening room, the bottle that protects the girl's heart from being hurt anymore.

Jeffers seems to want us to know from the very start that this is a book for everyone, describing the girl as being "much like any other" on the first page.

A good companion to Michael Rosen and Quentin Blake's Sad Book, The Heart and the Bottle is for anyone who has felt the loss of someone dear and anyone who has yet to feel grief but may need help one day finding her way back.

Don't miss the book trailer below of Jeffers talking about his artwork, previous books and the origins of The Heart and the Bottle, which will be featured in the independent film This Beautiful Fantastic, scheduled to begin filming this year.

Other wonderful books by Jeffers include The Way Back Home, The Incredible Book Eating Boy and Lost and Found.

Wendel's Workshop

Written and illustrated by Chris Riddell

Katherine Tegen Books, 2010

$16.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages

Wendel the inventor gets so distracted making devices that he doesn't think about all of the stuff he throws away in this clever book about reusing what you have even if it's less than perfect.

When one of Wendel's inventions has a glitch, the eccentric mouse scoots it to the back of his workshop or dumps it through a chute, jettisoning it to the scrap yard outside. And for a time, the rubbish is easy to ignore.

But one day, the mountains of scrap metal begin to close in on Wendel and he can no longer avoid all of the springs, levers and bolts piling up in his workshop. So Wendell sets to work building a robot to deal with the mess for him.

As with many first tries, his robot, Clunk, isn't quite right. The thing is, he's a goof. Instead of folding clothes, he knots them. Rather than stacking teacups in the cupboard, he tosses them in a sock drawer. And when he washes floors he scrubs with the wrong end of the mop.

So, of course, Wendel reverts to what he's always done. He gets rid of his failed invention, tossing the ungainly Clunk through the rubbish chute. Poor Clunk. He is after all a well-meaning galoot.

Being an inventor, the wheels in Wendel's head continue to spin and right away he sets off to contrive a bigger, better robot. This one doesn't have Clunk's goofy grin and looks like an imperial metal mouse. His ears are made of satellite dishes, his eyes glow red and Wendell names him "Wendelbot."

But Wendelbot works a little too perfectly. He crushes Wendel's dirty teacups into a neat pile of powder, flattens the laundry basket and suddenly he's chasing down Wendel and dropping him from his tail into the chute. (To be fair, Wendel is looking a little disheveled -- his hair is tousled and his overalls droop.)

Wendel lands at the tip-top of the scrap heap outside, dazed by his predicament, but soon he's roused by the sound of Clunk climbing around in the junk pile. Grabbing Clunk's skinny metal leg, Wendel hugs him will all of his might.

As the sounds of Wendelbot bashing about grow louder, Wendel turns to Clunk to help him stop the giant robo mouse. But what use could all of this rubble in the yard be to Wendel?

Riddell's illustrations are always so energetic and imaginative that even before you open his books, you know you're in for a treat. And this one is no exception. It's quirky, lively and fun, and on top of that it teaches two great lessons:

Whenever possible, find new uses for things you ordinarily throw away, and keep plugging away at whatever you like to do, even if it doesn't quite work at first and needs adjustments along the way.

I loved that Riddell chose a mouse for the part of Wendel, given that mice are such inquisitive busy-bodies and that he poked fun at the stereotype of inventors as dogged recluses that insist their contraptions will make life easier.

And as always, I was taken in by Riddell's whimsical illustrations -- I can't think of a better artist to contrive robots. I loved that my 6-year-old son carried this book around with him all day, drawing his own version of mechanical guys with plunger legs and articulated steel fingers.

As a side note, if you ever have a chance to go to a Riddell book signing, bring your kids. He's a generous illustrator and will often draw quick pen sketches of his characters for kids to take home. All three of our boys have framed their's and are bursting to draw like their buddy Chris.