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Buffalo Fluffalo arrives on the scene puffed up with self-importance. Stomping around and raising billows of dust, Buffalo Fluffalo proclaims his superiority to the other creatures—the ram, the prairie dog, and the crow—who just want to be his friend. So Buffalo Fluffalo, who has had enuffalo, heads off to grumble to himself. Suddenly, a rain shower pours down from the clouds and—what’s this? All of his fluffalo is a soggy mess! There Fluffalo stands, a drenched pip-squeak without his disguise. The other animals, who could see through Fluffalo’s bravado from the start, circle around to comfort him. As prairie dog says with a smile in his eyes, You’re great how you are, no matter your size.

Readers will find Buffalo Fluffalo’s insecurity endearing and will be moved to reassure him. This humorous and delightful book encourages self-acceptance with a lighthearted touch.

About Bess Kalb

Bess Kalb is an Emmy-nominated comedy writer and the bestselling author of “Nobody Will Tell You This But Me,” a New York Times Editor’s Choice. She has written for the Emmy Awards, the Oscars, and the 2020 DNC. She lives in Brooklyn. Her website is at: https://www.besskalb.com/

About Erin Kraan

Erin Kraan is a children’s book illustrator, woodcutter, and print-maker. Something's Wrong! (written by #1 New York Times bestselling author Jory John) was Erin's picture book debut. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her website is at: https://erinkraan.com/

Activities & Links

• Check out this read along at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScBttKOgt1w
• National Park Trust has 10 Incredible Bison Facts at: https://parktrust.org/blog/10-facts-about-bison/
• Watch SciShow Kids' video about the American Bison at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iVO5mkIn1c
• Learn Create Love has a fun Printable Bison Craft at: https://learncreatelove.com/printable-bison-craft/
• Individual Reflection exercise: Have students write about what they like about themselves, or what they would tell Buffalo Fluffalo about himself.
• Buffalo Fluffalo Activity Guide:  https://www.emporia.edu/documents/3788/Buffalo_Fluffalo_Activity_Guide.pdf

   

  

Crown of Wild by Erica Bodwell

Breaking Wild by Diane Les Becquets

What's Wild: A Half Century of Wisdom from the Woods and Rivers of New England by Eric Orff 

   

Can she figure out what she is in time to save humanity?

The coming of Baz, the Mossbringer, has been foretold: she has powers far beyond those of even the most gifted around her. And had her mother lived, she certainly would have been able to guide Baz through her dawning awareness of her abilities.

But even if Baz learns how to control and use those powers, it may not be enough to save the monks who want to use her, the Borderforges who want to enslave her, or the people who fear her. Can she trust Rendwyll-who is more sand than person-to guide her into her new awareness? With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, can she afford not to? --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

When not writing feverishly, Ronald Kaiser is a high school English teacher in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire.  He has published stories in New Hampshire Magazine, as well as Chicken Soup for the Soul. He has also written for small publications such as The Blotter, Centripetal, The Harrow, Limina, Farmhouse, Carved in Granite and others.

Join Ronald at Gibson's Bookstore on Tuesday, July 29, 2025 at 6:30 pm along with NH author DJ Bajraktari where they will both be featuring their YA fantasy books!

   

Ember has always been different from the other dragons. His fearsome roar sounds more like a polite sneeze, and when he breathes fire, the villagers just pat his head and say awwww.

Ember fears he’ll never collect a respectable hoard of gold until a chance encounter with a baker causes his fortunes to turn (and his stomach to grumble). As the little dragon soon discovers, the gold you make is way better than the gold you steal—and gold that is shared? That’s best of all.

Magic shimmers on every page of Devin Elle Kurtz's feel-good picture book that celebrates baked goods, dragons, and generosity in equal measure. Filled with adorable illustrations, this is a perfect read aloud for bedtime or brunchtime!

About Devin Elle Kurtz

Devin Elle Kurtz is a visual development artist, illustrator, and picture book author. She was born in Santa Cruz, California. Her debut picture book as an author-illustrator, The Bakery Dragon, was an Indie Next List pick and an Indie bestseller. Her website is at https://www.devinellekurtz.com/

Activities & Links

• Check out this read along at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPpBdoS7F-o
• Artsy Craftsy Mom has 15 Dramatic Dragon Crafts you can try at: https://artsycraftsymom.com/dragon-crafts-for-kids/
• Learn about real life dragons at: https://www.coolkidfacts.com/komodo-dragon-facts/ and https://easyscienceforkids.com/all-about-flying-dragons/ 
• Here are some great printable bakery items for a fun craft idea: https://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2023/01/bakery-pretend-play-printables.html
• Paper Crafts-Art has a tutorial on making paper bread slices you can try at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSHKqPTG4tM

   

In Thorn House, the domestic is treacherous and the dangerous is home. An unspoken understanding between reader and speaker exists-we are in the church of the wound or the scratch or the scrape-as clipped, careful moments tug against the chaos at the edge of each poem. Schramm's opening poem shows a speaker seeking to "hatch" and to "heal" from the past. By the book's final piece, the cumulative damage is a literal crack down the center of a poem that finally heals by its end. This is a book thick with New England graveyards, bloodied birch trees, forest pathways lined with the hung bodies of trapped rabbits. At the heart of each line and stanza sits the New Hampshire wilderness, a place of cold and remoteness and wonder, a place that offers refuge from family but also its own dangers. In "Wake: 1978," the arrival of an ice cream truck is juxtaposed with a dead child lying in a living room coffin. In "In Silence," snakes emerge from a concrete set of steps poured badly and in "Yesterday I Wrote a Poem Called 'Yesterday'," "Mother preaches 'her strictures-scriptures that were best obeyed." In several poems, including "Hide and Seek," children disappear into the woods and are unable to be found. The parents in the collection are shadowy figures who are sometimes avoided or escaped.

Poems of family and damage in Thorn House are balanced by a quieter series of eight 19-line poems centered around a correspondence with former New Hampshire Poet Laureate Jane Kenyon both before and during her illness. These poems capture moments of intimacy and fear and add to the foreboding sense of the collection, the feeling that we are in a darkness of the woods edged by the comfort of connection. As we read snippets of letters, caring inquiries and sentiments, and the news of her illness and decline, we see how the pain of two people can bond them together. Kenyon's cursive is "small, like nerve endings." Her pain is a "bone pain" suffered for too long. A reaching out across miles and silences becomes clear, as does the urgency of connection. Then finally the news of Kenyon's leukemia breaks, and a postscript to the exchange depicts a reflection at Kenyon's grave in Andover, New Hampshire, in a silence of snow. --Publisher's blurb

About the author:

Thom Schramm is the author of Thorn House (Yas Press, 2025), winner of the Granite State Poetry Prize, and The Leaf Blower (Blue Cubicle Press, 2016), as well as the editor of Living in Storms: Contemporary Poetry and the Moods of Manic-Depression (Eastern Washington University Press, 2008). His poems have appeared in AGNI, The American Scholar, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, and Smartish Pace, and have won an Academy of American Poets Prize.