A winter's day is transformed from bleak to beautiful by warm friendship and a new perspective in a gentle story that encourages the appreciation and celebration of cozy pleasures and quiet joys.

From talented illustrator Laura Bryant and gifted newcomer Aimee Reid comes a charming, heartwarming story about a little elephant's love for his mama. "Mama, when I grow up, will you grow down?" What would it be like if, one day, Little Gray were the big elephant and Mama the small one? Little Gray can picture it perfectly. He'd shade her from the sun, teach her to make mud, and find pictures in the clouds with her. In fact, he would do for her exactly what she does for him.

Author Jack Livingston Describes the Book"Clearing out the high school with a smoke bomb prank in our senior year, raising a family of pigs in a village yard, saving a drowning man in Singapore, and overcoming the trauma of a childhood abduction are part of my friend, Chris Kelley's past. I knew little about them. To me, Chris was the guy who was always up for doing two fun things in one day (sometimes three). When Chris was diagnosed with Pick's disease (a rare type of dementia) in his mid-fifties, it signaled the end to what we had taken for granted. It changed our friendship. No longer would I follow him on epic adventures he planned. These days, I take him for hikes, hold both sides of our conversations, and help him across a two-foot stream. But because I didn't want to forget the times we'd had together, I started to write, and as a result found out there was more to my friend. In A Lot Like Fun -- Only Different I share incredible stories of our improbable friendship where Chris met life head on while I asked, "Are you sure we want to do this?" It contains dozens of stories and photos from our past that contrast 'current day' Chris, diminished by Pick's, with the Chris I knew so well. No longer are we barreling down the 219 to ski or mountain bike the Bent Rim Trail, and celebrating with a 'couple tree' beers. We aren't breaking trails with our snowshoes in the Adirondack High Peaks or cruising through Appalachia on the way to a 24-hour mountain bike race. We still get together every week. And I look forward to those times. It's fun -- only different. Chris greets me with a smile and a hearty laugh. He doesn't speak, but I know if he could, he'd tell me, 'Thanks for coming out, Jack. Today was great.' And then it breaks my heart when he stands next to my car, wanting to ride home with me and I have to tell him, 'Chris, you're riding with your brother. I'll see you next week, okay buddy.' And I hear his words of the past. 'Good deal.'"

Sixteen-year-old Clifton, a racially mixed teen, wrestles with racism and bigotry in his rural Southern town, in a masterfully written tale about human connections and the power they have to heal.

It was a beautiful sunny day and all Emiya wanted to do was play with her friend but on that day she would experience something that would stay in her mind forever. We can't play today is a short children's story that navigates the sobering reality of racism and discrimination through the eyes of a child and offers the opportunity for reflection and conversation between parents and children.

Stories for the Heart: The Second Collection offers up over one hundred stories that hug readers' hearts and encourage their souls. This treasury of timeless tales written by some of today's best-known communicators offers a wealth of compassion and love certain to reach multiple generations. Readers will find themselves sharing these uplifting stories in conversation and relating the nuggets of wisdom they've discovered. The impact of these true-to-life tales will flavor the reader's views and inspire their hearts. Whether read during peaceful moments cuddled up by the fire, basking in the sunshine of the beach, or as a part of family times, this second collection in the Stories for the Heart series is guaranteed to stir the soul.

Richard Serrano, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Los Angeles Times, pens a story of two veterans. In the late 1950s, as America prepared for the Civil War centennial, two very old men lay dying. Albert Woolson, 109 years old, slipped in and out of a coma at a Duluth, Minnesota, hospital, his memories as a Yankee drummer boy slowly dimming. Walter Williams, at 117 blind and deaf and bedridden in his daughter's home in Houston, Texas, no longer could tell of his time as a Confederate forage master. The last of the Blue and the Gray were drifting away; an era was ending. Unknown to the public, centennial officials, and the White House too, one of these men was indeed a veteran of that horrible conflict and one according to the best evidence nothing but a fraud. One was a soldier. The other had been living a great, big lie.