New York Times–bestselling artist and Caldecott Honor winner Susan Jeffers has created a Nutcracker as only she can—with lavish illustrations, magnificent detail, and enchanting holiday scenes on every page. This is The Nutcracker as you’ve never seen it before! Join Marie, Fritz, and the intriguing Nutcracker himself on a magical Christmas Eve adventure. Behold the frightful Mouse King, the elegant Sugar Plum fairies, and the entire Land of Sweets in this dazzling, gorgeously illustrated holiday classic. With spare text based on the story in the ballet, this book offers a front-row seat to the enthralling tale that is a perennial favorite of adults and children alike. And for Susan Jeffers fans looking for extra content, an author’s note is included at the end of the book, in which she explains what inspired her to turn this holiday tradition into a show-stopping picture book.

"For the first time, this beloved holiday story is told based on George Balanchine's quintessential production. The storyline mimics the choreography of the famous ballet and the illustrations are inspired by the backdrops and scenery from the actual New York City Ballet production"--

The beautiful music of The Nutcracker now for babies and toddlers

A Christmas classic returns to Little Golden Books, with beautiful new artwork by a beloved Golden Books illustrator! The Nutcracker is back in print as a Little Golden Book, with all-new illustrations by Sheilah Beckett, who started illustrating Golden Books in the 1950s. This lovely retelling of the famous ballet will be a perfect holiday gift for any child who loves the ballet, Christmas stories, and fairy tales! This Read & Listen edition contains audio narration.

The magic of the beloved ballet is captured in this delightful Read & Listen edition. Art by a Caldecott Honor Book artist complements a succinct narration that is ideal for young children. This ebook includes Read & Listen audio narration.

The ROOTS OF READING • Writing is the ability to leave information through symbols while reading is the ability to retrieve information previously written. • Writing is transcribing words we speak into understandable symbols that we see. • We are not born speaking but we are wired to acquire the speech that we hear in a relatively short time flawlessly. • We have the inherent capacity to form concepts and label concepts with words. • Reading is an outgrowth of speaking. It follows that to be a good reader one must be a fluent speaker and commands a wide range of vocabulary. • Unlike speaking, we need to be taught to read and write. We build a vocabulary of using symbols to represent the sounds that make up words. Similarly we represent auditory signs with visual signs. These signs are represented by the letters of the alphabet. • We communicate verbally through speaking and listening. • For written communication, we use writing (sending a message) and reading (retrieving message). The method of representing sounds that make up words with signs is called phonics. • Writing is simply representing the sounds (letters) we use in saying a word. Reading is retrieving the message we wrote. • Analyzing the sounds that make up a word is called decoding. Choosing letters to represent the sounds of the word we want to say is encoding. Decoding and encoding are the cornerstones of reading and writing. • At first the process of decoding is slow but with practice, automaticity sets in and decoding is faster. Decoding then is reading. • To be an effective reader one needs to develop a subset of skills as follows: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension.

More than ever in this completely updated edition, The Elements of Expression helps word users "light up the cosmos or the written page or the face across the table" as they seek the radiance of expressiveness—the vivid expression of thoughts, feelings, and observations. Nothing kills radiance like the murky, generic language dominating today's talk, airwaves, and posts. It tugs at our every sentence, but using it to express anything beyond the ordinary is like flapping the tongue to escape gravity. The Elements of Expression offers an adventurous and inspiring flight into words that truly share what's percolating in our minds. Here writers, presenters, students, bloggers—even well intentioned "Mad Men"—will discover language to convey precise feelings, move audiences, delight and persuade. No snob or scold, the acclaimed word-maven Arthur Plotnik explores the full range of expressiveness, from playful "tough talk" to finely wrought literature, with hundreds of rousing examples. Confessing that we are all "like a squid in its ink" when first groping for luminous expression, he shines his amiable wit on the elements leading, ultimately, to language of "fissionable intensity."