Commonwealth Editions

This sunny, happy, and lovingly humorous story follows a child alligator--who lives in NYC--as he visits his grandma in her Florida home. I love my grandma and grandma loves me, he says, as they visit the beach, and theme parks, and, best of all, walk and talk and enjoy each other's company. Everyone will find something in the story to remind them of their own relationships with beloved grandparents or grandchildren. With bouncing rhymes and colorful illustrations, grandparents, parents and children are sure to love reading this story again and again!

When we go inside, grandma gives me a kiss.

In fact there's no place on my face she will miss

I may wriggle and giggle and grumble and hiss,

But only a grandma can kiss you like this.

Author Ed Shankman and illustrator Dave O'Neill began creating their award-winning children's books in New England, with stories on Boston, Cape Cod, Maine, and Vermont. In 2011 they turned their attention to New Orleans, Louisiana, and in 2013 they travel to the Sunshine State, Florida!

Next stop, Philadelphia! That's the call from author-illustrator Martha Day Zschock, who has taken children and their delighted parents on Journeys Around Boston, New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Chicago, Maine, Nantucket, and Cape Cod since starting this bestselling series in 1999. Zschock is not only a brilliant artist but also a committed educator, whose books are embraced by teachers and principals nationwide. These are far more than alphabet books. Each page is headed by an alliterative sentence that evokes an important theme. For example, Philadelphia's A page, featuring Benjamin Franklin, is headed Aphorisms and advice appear in the almanac. A playful factoid at the bottom of each page expands on the theme. (Did you know that the aphorism Haste makes waste is traceable to Poor Richard, i.e. Franklin?) In each city she visits, Zschock thoughtfully looks beyond the tourist attractions to the community residing there. For example, here the N page explains how Neighborhoods define urban nature. The O page describes how Old Order Amish obey the Ordnung, while the U page celebrates Philadelphia's stop on the Underground Railroad that helped enslaved African Americans escape the South before the Civil War. Now the second leading history destination in the U.S. (after Washington D.C.), Philadelphia is the perfect city for this thoughtful, beautiful series.

In 2009, prize-winning Atlantic Online cartoonist created her Where's Waldo?-type bestseller On the Loose in Boston, which depicted the animals from Franklin Park Zoo in Beantown settings from Fenway Park to Faneuil Hall. Stossel's new book follows the animals from the National Zoo as they cavort around our nation's capital from the White House to Capitol Hill to the National Air and Space Museum. Children will have hours of entertainment finding the animals in On the Loose in Washington, DC - whether a monkey at the Library of Congress, a kangaroo at the Supreme Court, or a lion at the National Mall! Over 100 animals are hiding cleverly in favorite DC locations in this colorfully-illustrated rhyming picture book.

The team who brought grins to young readers with The Boston Balloonies and I Met a Moose in Maine have created a third charmer about a family of codfish and their friends. According to Shankman's rhyming narrative: The Cods of Cape Cod / Love their summer vacation, / And though they could go / Anywhere in the nation, / They keep coming back / To their favorite location, / 'Cause they know that Cape Cod's / A vacation sensation! The Cods of Cape Cod / Have a house on the beach, / And it's just the right size, / With a fish tank for each. . . . To this colorful fish-friendly house come the Cods' many fishy friends, shrimp comes from Sandwich, bass from Mashpee, swordfish from Chatham, and so on. And boy, do they know how to have fun!