In Appalachia each Christmas, a boy named Frankie waits beside the tracks for the Christmas Train, which will bring presents to the children who live in coal towns and hollows. Year after year, Frankie hopes that one particular gift -- one very special gift -- will be tossed to him from that train. And it is this enduring hope that will guide him to the true meaning of the season. Cynthia Rylant's story about expectation and the transforming power of kindness first appeared in her acclaimed collection Children of Christmas. Now gloriously illustrated by Chris K. Soentpiet with watercolor paintings of glistening trains and snow-covered hills, it shines all the more brightly.

Silver Packages

Rylant, Cynthia

Anderson, Nancy

HarperCollins, Publishers

Every Living Thing

Depicts the relationship between all living things as it tells of the ways in which twelve human beings are touched by the animal, fish, or bird that is an important part of their lives

EVERY LIVING THING

Children's Books

Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books

Text and illustrations describe the sights and sounds of nighttime in the country.

Night in the Country

Animals

The relatives' station wagon: it smelled like a real car, looked like a rainbow, and was roomy enough for a crowd. 
Lucky! Because a big crowd in all shapes and sizes piled into that old wagon at four o'clock one summer morning and piled out of it the next day at their relatives' place on the north side of the mountains. All in good moods. 
The visitors settled in everywhere throughout the house, laughing and making music and hugging everyone from the kitchen to the front room. And they stayed for weeks. 
Cynthia Rylant's words and Stephen Gammell's pictures take warm delight in the time the relatives came -- when two sides of a family made one roomy middle.

The Relatives Came

Literature & Fiction

A Fine White Dust

The visit of the traveling Preacher Man to his small North Carolina town gives new impetus to thirteen-year-old Peter's struggle to reconcile his own deeply felt religious belief with the beliefs and non-beliefs of his family and friends.

Bradbury Press

Relates episodes in the life of eleven-year-old Ellie and her family who live in a coal mining town in West Virginia.

A Blue-Eyed Daisy

Teen & Young Adult

Follows the seasons of the year as reflected in the growth, life, and death of the garden of a large rural family.

This Year's Garden

Science, Nature & How It Works

A cycle of thirty poems chronicles a young girl's growing up in a small Appalachian town.

Waiting to Waltz: A Childhood

Henry, feeling lonely on a street without any other children, finds companionship and love in a big dog named Mudge.

HENRY AND MUDGE THE FIRST BOOK

Stevenson, Suçie

Henry and Mudge discover some spring surprises in this second adventure of the series. Full-color illustrations.

Henry and Mudge in Puddle Trouble

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Books by Rylant, Cynthia