Compelling and Controversial....The Melon Boys is a story of the South in the summer of 1968, soon after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Its fictitious account brings to light real events that took place outside the view of TV cameras and the 6 Oclock evening news. This was the South of the migrant worker and sharecropper, where white social backlash exacted a terrible price on ordinary blacks. In turbulent times, everyday life can require great courage, and friendships can lead to ultimate tests of loyalty. For college student Matt Mayer, the job of migrant worker turns into the education of a lifetime in this context. After he befriends two black co-workers, he finds himself in the path of danger more than once. He is quickly driven to decide if he should follow the unwritten rules that dictate day-to-day race relations, or honor the bonds of friendships he has formed. How can a white college student from the Midwest, with little exposure to any race but his own, make sense of the complex social rules of a still segregated South? And, more importantly, how will his experience shape the man he will become?

Greg Pizzoli's beloved Geisel Award-winning gem playfully taps kids' classic question about what could happen if they swallow a seed. Crocodile loves watermelon, but what will happen when his greatest fear of swallowing a watermelon seed comes to pass? Will vines sprout out his ears? Will his skin turn pink? Only one thing is certain: his wild imagination will have kids laughing out loud and begging for another read. With perfect comic pacing, bold color and dynamic sense of design, three-time Theodor Seuss Geisel Award recipient Greg Pizzoli's picture book debut transforms this familiar childhood anxiety into a contemporary classic read-aloud perfect for fans of I Want My Hat Back. "[A]n expert debut." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Children will love this hilarious book. The story has broad appeal, making it a great first purchase." -- School Library Journal (starred review) Don't miss these other favorite books by Greg Pizzol: The Book HogGood Night OwlNumber One SamTempleton Gets His WishThis Story is For YouThe Twelve Days of Christmas

Be yourself like Molly Lou Melon no matter what a bully may do. Molly Lou Melon is short and clumsy, has buck teeth, and has a voice that sounds like a bullfrog being squeezed by a boa constrictor. She doesn't mind. Her grandmother has always told her to walk proud, smile big, and sing loud, and she takes that advice to heart. But then Molly Lou has to start in a new school. A horrible bully picks on her on the very first day, but Molly Lou Melon knows just what to do about that.

Fans of The Thing About Jellyfish and A Snicker of Magic will be swept away by Cindy Baldwin’s debut middle grade about a girl coming to terms with her mother’s mental illness. An Oregon Spirit Award Honor book. When twelve-year-old Della Kelly finds her mother furiously digging black seeds from a watermelon in the middle of the night and talking to people who aren't there, Della worries that it’s happening again—that the sickness that put her mama in the hospital four years ago is back. That her mama is going to be hospitalized for months like she was last time. With her daddy struggling to save the farm and her mama in denial about what’s happening, it’s up to Della to heal her mama for good. And she knows just how she’ll do it: with a jar of the Bee Lady’s magic honey, which has mended the wounds and woes of Maryville, North Carolina, for generations. But when the Bee Lady says that the solution might have less to do with fixing Mama’s brain and more to do with healing her own heart, Della must learn that love means accepting her mama just as she is.

Melonhead, the first book in author Katy Kelly's laugh-out-loud chapter book series, is now in paperback! Adam Melon's friend Lucy Rose gave him a nickname—Melonhead—and it caught on fast. Melonhead is a self-proclaimed inventor. All his life, which is ten years and counting, great ideas have been popping in and out of his melon head. And sometimes they work! This year Melonhead's class is entering an inventing fair, so he and his friend Sam are dreaming up plans. And Capitol Hill has a ton of places to find invention parts. But they have to be sure they find what they need and get home on time with no excuses. That might be hard, because Melonhead and Sam have a way of forgetting. But their work will all pay off if they win first place—they'll be headed to even bigger and better things!

Blue-eyed pip is juicy-sweet, but mightily sassy, too! She eats watermelon for breakfast, lunch and tea, sharing with no-one, no matter how hard they try. One day, though, the watermelon supply dries up. There are no watermelons at the little shop, the big shop, or the online shop. Not one. Pip has a sinking feeling in her hungry, little tummy.That is, until she remembers all those watermelon pips she used to spit over the fence while swinging on her tyre swing! She scales the fence, and sure enough, right there is a joyous garden of homegrown watermelons! Pip is overjoyed! But, just as she's about to begin devouring that juicy flesh, she remembers all the hungry faces with whom she never shared.She knows what she has to do ? And, so begins one of the most beautiful endings to one of the most heartwarming children's picture books you're ever likely to read.

The moving and delightful story of the Valente family, although fiction, is grounded in first-hand knowledge of the way of life in Picinisco, southern Italy, in the post-war years. Poverty, separation and loss were common experiences that caused many to emigrate. Yet the hardships were more than balanced by a culture of family warmth and vitality, shared connection to the land and an intimate understanding of how to work it. A born storyteller, Serafina Crolla was inspired to write Children of This Land when visiting the cemetery in her native village of Picinisco. There, she saw a headstone for 'An exemplary mother of nineteen children'. She was deeply struck by the eloquent simplicity and poignancy of this memorial inscription. As the daughter of a shepherd, Serafina well understood the joys and hardships that life would have entailed for this family. Through the vicissitudes of life, ties to this place hold strong for the Valentes. The nineteen children who make up the family tell their stories of love, marriage, trials and tribulations, loss and pain of immigration. Serafina's own family emigrated to Scotland when she was a little girl but she returns to her homeland often, for, as she puts it: 'A love for Picinisco as deep as the valleys and as pure as the snow-capped mountains is never forgotten.'