Losing a job is an awfully low point--until it turns into the opportunity to pursue writing full time, and a book like "The Five Ancestors: Tiger" results. Jeff Stone looks back to his own experience as a young reader and taps that experience to help frame his own writing. An intriguing snapshot of his new book follows.

Intended as a survey of the children's short story and aimed especially at parents and education professionals, this anthology provides insight into the historical development of the short story for children, showing how the perception of childhood and changing attitudes have influenced writers of different periods. The anthology is…

A humorous presentation of publisher-to-author correspondence that indicates how contemporary publishers might criticize or reject such works as "Treasure Island,""The Tale of Peter Rabbit,""Little Women," and the Grimm brothers' fairy tales. (ET)

Presents four ready-to-use fables by Arnold Lobel, plus classroom activities and insights from the author. (Editor/SJL)

Children's fiction about Africa which has been either written in English or translated from other languages into English is discussed in this book. Covered are 542 novels and volumes of short stories written for children that were collected and read by the author before July 1977. Part I outlines several major elements of the cultural background…

"A Millionaire at Sixteen" is the second volume of the "All-Over-the-World" series; and while the book may be read independently of the first, it is the continuation of the adventures of Louis Belgrave, who was presented to the reader in the preceding story. After the first volume, the author hopes to not be accused with being…

Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman was a product of two worlds--the Indian and the White. A member of the Santee Sioux Tribe, he was respected and admired in both of these worlds for the work he did on behalf of American Indians, first as a young doctor caring for the sick on the Reservation, and later as a writer and speaker, showing the richness of…

Describes the dramatization of Katherine Anne Porter's story,"The Fig Tree's Lessons." Discusses the process by which this story was made accessible to an audience of 8- to 12-year-old children. Notes that this program attempts to avoid the simplification of the profound human experience of dealing with death. (KO)