A distant marching band grows larger and louder as it nears, and then softer and smaller as it goes away again.

The marching band is in the distance. Big as ants. Loud as crickets. Here it comes! Big as crickets. Loud as birds. Coming closer! Louder and louder, brighter and brighter. Hear the drums! Hear the horns! The band is here, marching by. Thump, Thump, Thump! Rat-a-tat-tat!

Why use picture books with children? -- Extending picture books through art -- Extending picture books through drama -- Extending picture books through music -- Extending picture books through math -- Extending picture books through science.

★ “Smith spins a quietly moving narrative...Wada’s large-scale woodblock style illustrations are a perfect complement to the story’s restrained text...The graceful way in which this book handles a sensitive and serious subject makes it a first purchase."—School Library Journal When the tsunami destroyed Makio's village, Makio lost his father . . . and his voice. The entire village is silenced by grief, and the young child's anger at the ocean grows. Then one day his neighbor, Mr. Hirota, begins a mysterious project—building a phone booth in his garden. At first Makio is puzzled; the phone isn't connected to anything. It just sits there, unable to ring. But as more and more villagers are drawn to the phone booth, its purpose becomes clear to Makio: the disconnected phone is connecting people to their lost loved ones. Makio calls to the sea to return what it has taken from him and ultimately finds his voice and solace in a phone that carries words on the wind. The Phone Booth in Mr. Hirota's Garden is inspired by the true story of the wind phone in Otsuchi, Japan, which was created by artist Itaru Sasaki. He built the phone booth so he could speak to his cousin who had passed, saying, "My thoughts couldn't be relayed over a regular phone line, I wanted them to be carried on the wind." The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed the town of Otsuchi, claiming 10 percent of the population. Residents of Otsuchi and pilgrims from other affected communities have been traveling to the wind phone since the tsunami.

It's the middle of a heat wave, and Charlie Schroeder is dressed in heavy clothing and struggling to row a replica eighteenth-century bateau down the St. Lawrence River. Why? Months earlier, Schroeder realized he knew almost nothing about history. But he wanted to learn, so the actor spent a year reenacting it. This book is Schroeder's account of the time he spent chasing Celts in Arkansas, raiding a Viet Cong village in Virginia, and flirting with frostbite en route to "Stalingrad" in Colorado. Along the way, he illuminates just how much the past can teach us about the present.--From back cover.

The flashing colors and crashing sounds of a parade come closer and closer as a marching band plays to a crescendo . . . then gradually fade away as the band passes down the street. ‘The rhythmic text and changes in letter size convey a sense of excitement, the intensity of the colors makes the shapes sing from the pages." —H.