A poignant story of a 15 year veteran teacher who has lost his ability to touch the lives of today's kids. Through the help of an unlikely hero, he finds his love of teaching again.

How the lives and labors of nineteenth-century circus elephants shaped the entertainment industry. Consider the career of an enduring if controversial icon of American entertainment: the genial circus elephant. In Entertaining Elephants Susan Nance examines elephant behavior—drawing on the scientific literature of animal cognition, learning, and communications—to offer a study of elephants as actors (rather than objects) in American circus entertainment between 1800 and 1940. By developing a deeper understanding of animal behavior, Nance asserts, we can more fully explain the common history of all species. Entertaining Elephants is the first account that uses research on animal welfare, health, and cognition to interpret the historical record, examining how both circus people and elephants struggled behind the scenes to meet the profit necessities of the entertainment business. The book does not claim that elephants understood, endorsed, or resisted the world of show business as a human cultural or business practice, but it does speak of elephants rejecting the conditions of their experience. They lived in a kind of parallel reality in the circus, one that was defined by their interactions with people, other elephants, horses, bull hooks, hay, and the weather. Nance’s study informs and complicates contemporary debates over human interactions with animals in entertainment and beyond, questioning the idea of human control over animals and people's claims to speak for them. As sentient beings, these elephants exercised agency, but they had no way of understanding the human cultures that created their captivity, and they obviously had no claim on (human) social and political power. They often lived lives of apparent desperation.

Gerald the elephant and Piggie learn to play catch with their new friend Snake, even though Snake doesn't have any arms! By the author of the Theodor Seuss Geisel Medal-winning book, Are You Ready to Play Outside?

From Africa to Asia, the elephant makes its home. Light on their feet, despite their great weight, these magnificent creatures appear light and graceful because they're always walking on their tip-toes. They have excellent hearing and can detect the rumblings of other elephants from six miles away. And, just like humans being right handed or left handed, elephants can be right tusked or left tusked!

From the author-illustrator of Abbeville's Big Cat, Small Cat comes another rhyme-completion concept book, teaching children about colors through bright landscapes of loveable elephants. I Dream of an Elephant takes readers through a wondrous world where they will encounter elephants of many colorful shades that sing, dance, and play. Each page's descriptive sing-song text leaves out the last word, allowing little ones to chime in and complete the rhyme while learning a range of colors. Amusing color-themed illustrations provide clues for the words that have been left out. I Dream of an Elephant teaches children about colors with a fun, fill-in-the-blank challenge that encourages participation. Accomplished illustrator Ami Rubinger once again turns his humorous and imaginative eye to an otherwise simple subject. His colorful elephants will make little faces smile, and the rhyming game will have them learning words and colors.

Gerald the elephant discovers that there is something worse than a bird on your head-- two birds on your head! Piggie will try to help her best friend.

Gerald is careful. Piggie is not. Piggie cannot help smiling. Gerald can. Gerald and Piggie are best friends. In I Am Going!, Piggie ruins a perfectly good day by telling Gerald she is going. If Piggie goes, who will Gerald skip with, play Ping-Pong with, and wear silly hats with? Willems's Geisel Award–winning duo continues to delight readers with their silly shenanigans. Packed full of humor and heart, the Elephant & Piggie Books are vetted by an early-learning specialist and early learners themselves, so they'll be right on target for new readers.