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.

A classic by Edward Rowe Snow, first published in 1943 and updated in 1944 and again in 1946, Storms and Shipwrecks of New England relates what William P. Quinn calls stories of stormy adventure. Jeremy D'Entremont has provided annotations to Snow's chapters, covering the pirate ship Whidah, the wreck of the City of Columbus, the Portland Gale, the 1938 hurricane, and more, bringing the information about the storms and shipwrecks up to date.

A brief history of Boston's Big Dig, the largest public works project in American history.

In this board book for our littlest readers, ages 0 to 3, we'll learn to count down from 10 to 1, while discovering fantastic floats in the Mardi Gras parade, music in the French Quarter, St. Louis Cathedral, streetcars on St. Charles, and more! There's so much to see--won't you join me?

A reissue of Edward Rowe Snow's first book, covering the legends and history of nearly every rock and island in Boston Harbor, including Boston Light and Graves Light. The first (1935) edition resulted from research Snow did at Harvard under the tutelage of the great maritime historian Samuel Eliot Morison. When the 1971 edition of the book was published, a critic for the Boston Post wrote, Mr. Snow has the gift of making his subject vivid and personal in its anecdotal touches . . . It is a volume of chatty yet dignified essays, with many a light touch brought in. This centennial edition contains the complete 1971 text, with annotations by Jeremy D'Entremont to bring the information up to date.