Disney Interactive
- Children develop over 20 learning skills
- Teaches letters, numbers, shapes, colors, and more
- Encourages kids to explore, discover, and create while they learn
- Enhances memory, listening, and observation skills
- Inspires creativity and imagination
Knowledge Adventure
- Join Dee Dee the Duck as she explores Grandma's house and magical garden
- My Learning Scrapbook makes it simple to chronicle all the important "firsts"
- Toddlers receive positive onscreen responses to any keystroke or mouse movement
- Includes personalized, printable activities
- Scrapbook activities can be e-mailed or uploaded to a family Web site
by Isabelle Koch
This is an artful and empathetic introduction that is sure to engage the imagination and curiosity of many a child and lead them to the joys of yoga. A simple yet profound stroll through basic principles of hatha yoga engages children in movement and imagination.
by Shakta Kaur Khalsa
Directions for the movements are mixed with brief stories or images for the participants to focus on. For example, "the yoga mountain story" is presented along with poses that reflect the action of the tale. Appealing black-and-white photographs of Khalsa's young students performing the exercises appear throughout. A separate section explains how each action helps the body and mind. The correlation made between the poses and animals/transportation/ plants gives every child a visual and sensorial image to connect to the kinesthetic experience of the yoga. A must for any child or classroom!
Kids Knitting : Projects for Kids of All Ages
by Melanie D. Falick (Photographer), Kristin Nicholas
Knitting may not be the first free-time activity kids think of, but this very attractive book is just the thing to get them interested. Special care has been taken with the book's design--everything from the typeface to the layout to the bright background colors and occasional original artwork makes the book look hip and fresh. Dynamic color photos show both boys and girls knitting away at appealing projects--among them, backpacks, hats, puppets,
scarves, and a sweater. The instructions for knitting basics, such as casting on and the garter stitch, are given both in writing and visually, and are so clear that adult books on knitting could pick up some pointers. A list of yarn sources and information on caring for
hand-knits round out the treatment. Not your grandmother's knitting book.
In 15 easy projects, author and knitting expert Melanie Falick teaches kids of all ages how to knit. Through step-by-step instructions and brightly-colored illustrations, beginners learn the fundamentals--from knitting tools and finger-knitting to such basic stitches as purl, mattress, and overcast. Full color
by J. K. Rowling
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling offers up equal parts danger and delight--and any number of dragons, house-elves, and death-defying challenges. Now 14, her orphan hero has only two more weeks with his Muggle relatives before returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Yet one night a vision harrowing enough to make his lightning-bolt-shaped scar burn has Harry on edge and contacting his godfather-in-hiding, Sirius Black. Happily, the prospect of attending the season's premier sporting event, the Quidditch World Cup, is enough to make Harry momentarily forget that Lord Voldemort and his sinister familiars--the Death Eaters--are out for murder.
by J. K. Rowling, Mary Grandpre (Illustrator)
For most children, summer vacation is something to look forward to. But not for our 13-year-old hero, who's forced to spend his summers with an aunt, uncle, and cousin who detest him. The third book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series catapults into action when the young wizard "accidentally" causes the Dursleys' dreadful visitor Aunt Marge to inflate like a monstrous balloon and drift up to the ceiling. Fearing punishment from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (and from officials at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who strictly forbid students to cast spells in the nonmagic world of Muggles), Harry lunges out into the darkness with his heavy trunk and his owl Hedwig. As it turns out, Harry isn't punished at all for his errant wizardry. Instead he is mysteriously rescued from his Muggle neighborhood and whisked off in a triple-decker, violently purple bus to spend the remaining weeks of summer in a friendly inn called the Leaky Cauldron. What Harry has to face as he begins his third year at Hogwarts explains why the officials let him off easily. It seems that Sirius Black--an escaped convict from the prison of Azkaban--is on the loose. Not only that, but he's after Harry Potter. But why? And why do the Dementors, the guards hired to protect him, chill Harry's very heart when others are unaffected? Once again, Rowling has created a mystery that will have children and adults cheering.
by J. K. Rowling
It's hard to fall in love with an earnest, appealing young hero like Harry Potter and then to watch helplessly as he steps into terrible danger! And in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the much anticipated sequel to the award-winning Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, he is in terrible danger indeed. As if it's not bad enough that after a long summer with the horrid Dursleys he is thwarted in his attempts to hop the train to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin his second year. But when his only transportation option is a magical flying car, it is just his luck to crash into a valuable (but clearly vexed) Whomping Willow. Still, all this seems like a day in the park compared to what happens that fall within the haunted halls of Hogwarts. Chilling, malevolent voices whisper from the walls only to Harry, and it seems certain that his classmate Draco Malfoy is out to get him. Soon it's not just Harry who is worried about survival, as dreadful things begin to happen at Hogwarts. The mysteriously gleaming, foot-high words on the wall proclaim, "The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened. Enemies of the Heir, Beware." But what exactly does it mean? Harry, Hermione, and Ron do everything that is wizardly possible--including risking their own lives--to solve this 50-year-old, seemingly deadly mystery. This deliciously suspenseful novel is every bit as gripping, imaginative, and creepy as the first; familiar student concerns--fierce rivalry, blush-inducing crushes, pedantic professors--seamlessly intertwine with the bizarre, horrific, fantastical, or just plain funny. Once again, Rowling writes with a combination of wit, whimsy, and a touch of the macabre that will leave readers young and old desperate for the next installment
by J. K. Rowling
Say you've spent the first 10 years of your life sleeping under the stairs of a family who loathes you. Then, in an absurd, magical twist of fate you find yourself surrounded by wizards, a caged snowy owl, a phoenix-feather wand, and jellybeans that come in every flavor, including strawberry, curry, grass, and sardine. Not only that, but you discover that you are a wizard yourself! This is exactly what happens to young Harry Potter in J.K. Rowling's enchanting, funny debut novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. In the nonmagic human world--the world of "Muggles"--Harry is a nobody, treated like dirt by the aunt and uncle who begrudgingly inherited him when his parents were killed by the evil Voldemort. But in the world of wizards, small, skinny Harry is famous as a survivor of the wizard who tried to kill him. He is left only with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, curiously refined sensibilities, and a host of mysterious powers to remind him that he's quite, yes, altogether different from his aunt, uncle, and spoiled, piglike cousin Dudley. A mysterious letter, delivered by the friendly giant Hagrid, wrenches Harry from his dreary, Muggle-ridden existence: "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Of course, Uncle Vernon yells most unpleasantly, "I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" Soon enough, however, Harry finds himself at Hogwarts with his owl Hedwig... and that's where the real adventure--humorous, haunting, and suspenseful--begins.
by Ken Nordine, Henrik Drescher (Illustrator)
Nordine's multi-hued "word jazz" breathes fiery life into the quirky personalities of colors. On each two-page spread, Nordine tackles a new color with a snazzy, jazzy, hip poem depicting all its woes and wonders. Olive is suffering from low self-esteem--who knew? And silly azure, with its nutty ideas, just likes to be different. The author truly soars with his treatise on the color "flesh": "Flesh, as a color, is an awful mess." If all the flesh colors refuse to "establish a sensible sanity/ among differences... flesh, as a color,/ could be black and blue/ or even a bloody hue." Henrik Drescher's wacky and wild illustrations make use of a child's drawings from the 1930s, as well as his own remarkable and unique imagination to create what might be the first glimpses of the real personalities of yellow, purple, chartreuse, and the rest. We're confident that young artists, writers, and musicians will love discovering the greens inside the green as much as we do. (Ages 6 and older)
