Build a Better World Book List

It's a noisy night in this city building! The residents of each floor can hear their neighbors above them, and are wondering what's going on above their heads. Climb floor by floor and page by page to find out whose singing, dancing, cheering, and cooing are keeping a grumpy old man awake. With innovative split-level spreads that offer the feeling of climbing an apartment building floor by floor, this clever and colorful collaboration between New York Times-bestselling author Mac Barnett and gifted illustrator Brian Biggs offers an irresistible investigation of one noisy night.

ANew York Times Book ReviewEditors' Choice Winner of the 2013Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Best Picture Book AKirkus Reviews Best Book of 2013 ANew York Times Book ReviewNotable Children's Book of 2013 In this unique construction book for kids who love tools and trucks, readers join a girl and her family as they pack up their old house in town and set out to build a new one in the country. Mom and Dad are going to make the new house themselves, from the ground up. From empty lot to finished home, every stage of their year-and-a-half-long building project is here. And at every step their lucky kids are watching and getting their hands dirty, in page after page brimming with machines, vehicles, and all kinds of house-making activities! As he imagines it through the eyes of his older sister,Building Our Houseis Jonathan Bean's retelling of his own family's true experience, and includes an afterword with photographs from the author's collection.

Iggy Peck and Rosie Revere have earned their places among the most beloved children's characters and have inspired countless kids and adults to follow their passions. Determined Ada Twist, with her boundless curiosity for science and love of the question "Why?," is destined to join these two favourites. Like her classmates Iggy and Rosie, Ada has always been hopelessly curious. Why are there pointy things stuck to a rose? Why are there hairs growing inside your nose? She embarks on fact-finding missions and conducts scientific experiments, all in the name of discovery. When her house fills with a horrific, toe-curling smell, Ada knows it's up to her to find the source. But, this time, her experiments lead to trouble.

Cheery persistence wears down a curmudgeonly bear in a wry comedy of manners that ends in a most unlikely friendship. Bear is quite sure he doesn't like visitors. He even has a sign. So when a mouse taps on his door one day, Bear tells him to leave. But when Bear goes to the cupboard to get a bowl, there is the mouse -- small and gray and bright-eyed. In this slapstick tale that begs to be read aloud, all Bear wants is to eat his breakfast in peace, but the mouse -- who keeps popping up in the most unexpected places -- just won't go away!