English

The year 1940 is a very big year for Tomie-it's the start of first grade, and it's his first birthday in the new house at 26 Fairmount Avenue. It's also the first year that Tomie gets to go trick-or-treating with his older brother, Buddy. Then the holidays arrive, and Tomie has a part in the Christmas play. This Christmas is going to be great! But disaster strikes when Tomie gets the chicken pox. Will he be cured in time for the Christmas pageant? Join Tomie dePaola once again as he takes us back to his childhood and allows us to share the holiday season with his family and friends.

Tomie has his own diary - it's his best Christmas present ever! All through the year exciting things happen and Tomie writes about them in his diary - sledding down the steep hill on his new Junior Flexible Flyer, being a pirate in the dance recital, and starting second grade with real art lessons at last! Then one Sunday morning Tomie's family hears news on the radio that changes everything. Master storyteller Tomie dePaola takes us back to 1941 and lets us experience what life was like growing up in the dePaola household.

Since the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, second grade has been hard on Tomie. Normal, everyday activities such as Tomie's first music lesson and Miss Leah's dance classes go on as usual. But now his class has to go to the spooky furnace room for air raid drills. And at home his family hangs thick black curtains on the windows so that the enemy won't see the house's light. Tomie's mother is there to comfort and explain the confusion, and Tomie feels better. He even goes Christmas shopping with Dad as usual. But the day-to-day effects of the war are always there.

We first met Tink when he came to live in Crow Cove as a young boy in Eidi. Now hard times have come to the little settlement, and their food supply is dwindling. Tink, with the help of a newcomer to Crow Cove, saves his friends from starvation by learning how to fish and also learns important lessons about the complexities of human nature, the importance of compassion, and his own valued place in his community. Tink is a strong new addition to the much-acclaimed Children of Crow series.

When Penny comes home from school, she is ready to sing her song. But the babies are sleeping, and Mama and Papa are worried that Penny will wake them up. Oh, but it is a good song, a really wonderful song...and Penny wants more than anything to sing it. What do you think will happen?