William Steig

4" x 6" postcard featuring artwork from William Steig's Caldecott-winning picture book Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.

4" x 6" postcard featuring artwork from William Steig's Caldecott-winning picture book Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.

This wry and winsome picture book is a spicy alphabet soup indeed! With each letter-centric verse introducing you to characters like noisome Naomi (nervy as a newt), King Kang (the killer kangaroo who plays kazoo), and even the lovey-dovey lunatic from Lvov, you'll never get bored learning that "B" is for "Belligerent Bear" instead of "balloon" or "ball"!

With language that tickles with alliteration and keen wit, and drawings that gleefully capture western melodrama, domestic disasters, near-death by piano lessons, and excruciating concertina concerts, this classic Steig & Steig alphabet book is a feast for eyes and ears alike.

Amos the mouse and Boris the whale: a devoted pair of friends with nothing at all in common, except good hearts and a willingness to help their fellow mammal. They meet after Amos sets out to sail the sea and finds himself in extreme need of rescue. And there will come a day, long after Boris has gone back to a life at sea and Amos has gone back to life on dry land, when the tiny mouse must find a way to rescue the great whale.

Amos & Boris is a 1971 New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year, Notable Children's Book of the Year, and Outstanding Book of the Year.

Brave Irene is Irene Bobbin, the dressmaker's daughter. Her mother, Mrs. Bobbin, isn't feeling so well and can't possibly deliver the beautiful ball gown she's made for the duchess to wear that very evening. So plucky Irene volunteers to get the gown to the palace on time, in spite of the fierce snowstorm that's brewing-- quite an errand for a little girl.

But where there's a will, there's a way, as Irene proves in the danger-fraught adventure that follows. She must defy the wiles of the wicked wind, her most formidable opponent, and overcome many obstacles before she completes her mission. Surely, this winning heroine will inspire every child to cheer her on.

William Steig's Brave Irene is a 1986 New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year.

Vibrant color brings new life to Caldecott Medal-winning New Yorker cartoonist William Steig's classic puzzle book!

Who but Jeanne and William Steig would tackle retelling the Old Testament and the Greek myths? The cheekiest of the classic Steig books--The Old Testament Made Easy and A Gift from Zeus--turn the stories you know upside down and are bound together in this divine, deluxe edition for the first time.

A Newbery Honor Book from the creator of Shrek.

Doctor De Soto, the dentist, did very good work. With the aid of his able assistant, Mrs. De Soto, he copes with the toothaches of animals large and small. His expertise is so great that his fortunate patients never feel any pain.

Since he's a mouse, Doctor De Soto refuses to treat dangerous animals--that is, animals who have a taste for mice. But one day a fox shows up and begs for relief from the tooth that's killing him. How can the kindhearted De Sotos turn him away? But how can they make sure that the fox doesn't give in to his baser instincts once his tooth is fixed? Those clever De Sotos will find a way.

A funny view of the very worst members of the animal kingdom whose continued existence is not necessarily a foregone conclusion.

Zoologically accurate, yet hilarious, these forty brief, witty essays include distinctions between Stoats and Ermines, reasons why the Age of Reptiles simply had to come to an end, and all you need to know about creatures from the Carp to the Giant Ground Sloth. Our guide is New Yorker humorist Will Cuppy, a perennially perturbed hermit who thought life was out to get him. He may have been right.

For eight years, from 1921 to 1929, Will Cuppy lived alone on Jones Island, off Long Island's South Shore. From that outpost, he gained a reputation for his factual but funny magazine articles and wrote the book, How to be a Hermit, his first bestseller. His last, The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody, was left unfinished after Cuppy's death in 1949 and has become a classic of American humor. In between (among other titles) was this very funny bestiary is for the naturalist--and curmudgeon--in all of us.