This technique-filled workshop for creating soft toys, with 16 projects and 52 lessons, covers everything from the basics to advanced construction elements.

Award-winning photographer Mark Nixon has created a trove of quirky and nostalgic portraits of teddy bears and other stuffed animals that have been lovingly abused after years of play. MuchLoved collects 60 of these images along with their accompanying background tales. An exhibit in the photographer’s studio led to a small sensation on the Internet when a few of the pictures circulated unofficially on scores of blogs and on many legitimate news sites. Viewers have been intrigued by the funny, bittersweet images and their ironic juxtaposition of childhood innocence and aged, loving wear and tear. When you see these teddy bears and bunnies with missing noses and undone stuffing, you can’t help but think back to childhood and its earliest companions who asked for nothing and gave a lot back. Praise for Much Loved: “Much Loved is impossibly endearing in its entirety.” —Brain Pickings

When Willy wakes up there is trouble. Where is Bobo? Willy needs Bobo. But Earl the cat likes Bobo, too. A favorite toy is hard to share…especially when it’s a sock monkey. Because sharing is caring. Sharing is great. But you know what’s best (according to Earl the cat)? Not sharing at all! With sparse text and a modern-nostalgic vibe, this retro-fun book tells it like it is when it comes to sharing a favorite toy. Oh, Earl! Leave Bobo alone.

The natural history museum is a place where the line between "high" and "low" culture effectively vanishes--where our awe of nature, our taste for the bizarre, and our thirst for knowledge all blend happily together. But as Stephen Asma shows in Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads, there is more going on in these great institutions than just smart fun. Asma takes us on a wide-ranging tour of natural history museums in New York and Chicago, London and Paris, interviewing curators, scientists, and exhibit designers, and providing a wealth of fascinating observations. We learn how the first museums were little more than high-toned side shows, with such garish exhibits as the pickled head of Peter the Great's lover. In contrast, today's museums are hot-beds of serious science, funding major research in such fields as anthropology and archaeology. "Rich in detail, lucid explanation, telling anecdotes, and fascinating characters.... Asma has rendered a fascinating and credible account of how natural history museums are conceived and presented. It's the kind of book that will not only engage a wide and diverse readership, but it should, best of all, send them flocking to see how we look at nature and ourselves in those fabulous legacies of the curiosity cabinet."--The Boston Herald.

Katie is afraid of the bear that lives under the stairs in her house, until they exchange letters and she finally gets to meet him.

A wordless story that depicts young children having fun during the autumn months.

A hippopotamus with severe hiccups causes chaos until other creatures finally find the right cure.