Marion Dane Bauer

When his best friend drowns while they are both swimming in a treacherous river that they had promised never to go near, Joel is devastated and terrified at having to tell both sets of parents the terrible consequences of their disobedience.

For most of Ben's life, he has been a kid without a mom. He has his dad, who knows Ben doesn't like oatmeal and always hugs Ben before bed. And he has Sunshine, his loyal little dog, who is never far from his side. But his mom, who left when he was young, has just been a story, faint in his memory. Now he's about to spend a whole week with her on her remote island in the middle of the northern Minnesota wilderness. Though he's nervous about bears...

Simple text and illustrations explore the wonders of snow.

When the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami separates a young African hippopotamus from his mother, he finds a new snuggle partner in Mzee the giant tortoise. Based on a true story.

A simple retelling of the Nativity story that celebrates the timeless joy of welcoming a new baby into the world.

Fourteen-year-old Polly Rodgers keeps a diary of her 1873 journey from England to Minnesota as part of a colony of eighty people seeking religious freedom, and of their first year struggling to make a life there, led by her father, a Baptist minister.

Runt, the smallest wolf cub in the litter, seeks to prove himself to his father King and the rest of the pack and to earn a new name.

Illustrations and simple text explain what wind is, how it is used by plants, birds, and people, and how wind can become a storm.

A young girl imagines what it would be like to have a tongue like a snapping turtle, feet like a fly, a tail like a lizard, or cheeks like a chipmunk.

In Anchorage, Alaska, two lonely boys make a connection--a brown bear injured just after his mother sends him out on his own, and a human whose father is a new keeper at the Alaska Zoo and whose mother and sister are still in Minnesota.