Showing results by author "Kate DiCamillo" in All Categories

One summer's day, 10-year-old India Opal Buloni goes down to the local supermarket for some groceries - and comes home with a dog. But Winn-Dixie is no ordinary dog. It's because of Winn-Dixie that Opal begins to make friends. And it's because of Winn-Dixie that she finally dares to ask her father about her mother, who left when Opal was three. In fact, as Opal admits, just about everything that happens that summer is because of Winn-Dixie.

This is the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in darkness but covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl with a simple, impossible wish. These characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and ultimately, into each other's lives.

Francine Poulet is the greatest animal control officer in Gizzford County. She hails from a long line of animal control officers. She's battled snakes, outwitted squirrels, and stared down a bear. "The genuine article", Francine's dad always called her. She is never scared - until, that is, she's faced with a screaming raccoon that may or may not be a ghost. Maybe Francine isn't cut out to be an animal control officer after all! But the raccoon is still on the loose, and the folks on Deckawoo Drive need Francine back.

Funny Business is based around the theme of - what else? - humor, and if you’re familiar with Jon and the Guys Read Library, you already know what you’re in store for: 10 hilarious stories from some of the funniest writers around. Before you’re through, you’ll meet a teenage mummy; a kid desperate to take a dip in the world’s largest pool of chocolate milk; a homicidal turkey; parents who hand over their son’s room to a biker; and more.

Welcome back to Deckawoo Drive for a sixth endearing installment in the companion series to Kate DiCamillo's New York Times best-selling Mercy Watson books. Frank Endicott is a worrier. He worries about lions, submarines, black holes, leprosy, and armadillos. He lists his worries alphabetically in a notebook and suffers vivid nightmares that even a certain neighborhood pig can't dispatch. When he accompanies Eugenia Lincoln on an errand to duplicate a key at her favorite dark and dusty thrift shop, Frank earns fresh cause for alarm.

Orris the rat lives alone in an old barn surrounded by his treasures, until the day his solitude is disrupted by a sudden flutter of wings and a loud screech. A small owl has gotten caught in a trap in the barn. Can Orris “make the good and noble choice” (as the king on his prized sardine can might recommend) and rescue the owl, despite the fact that owls and rats are natural enemies? And if he does, will he be ready for the consequences?

Kate DiCamillo takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the depths of the ocean to the net of a fisherman, from the top of a garbage heap to the fireside of a hoboes' camp, from the bedside of an ailing child to the bustling streets of Memphis. And along the way, we are shown a true miracle, that even a heart of the most breakable kind can learn to love, to lose, and to love again.

Stella Endicott loves her teacher, Miss Liliana, and she is thrilled when the class is assigned to write a poem. Stella crafts a beautiful poem about Mercy Watson, the pig who lives next door - a poem complete with a metaphor and full of curiosity and courage. But Horace Broom, Stella's irritating classmate, insists that Stella's poem is full of lies and that pigs do not live in houses. And when Stella and Horace get into a shouting match in the classroom, Miss Liliana banishes them to the principal's office. Will the two of them find a way to turn this opposite-of-a-poem day around?

Mr. and Mrs. Watson's porcine wonder, Mercy, loves nothing more than a ride in the car. It takes a fair amount of nudging and bribing and a "You are such a good sport, darling" to get the portly pig out of the driver's seat, but once the convertible is on the road, Mercy loves the feel of the wind tickling her ears and the sun on her snout.

Pig hero. Porcine wonder. Fan of toast with a great deal of butter on it. Mercy Watson’s disarming personality and hilarious hijinks captivate early chapter-book audiences. Here, for Mercy Watson’s loyal fans and new friends, comes an audiobook collection that will have listeners squealing with delight.

Baby Lincoln's older sister, Eugenia, is very fond of telling Baby what to do, and Baby usually responds by saying, "Yes, Sister." But one day Baby has had enough. She decides to depart on a Necessary Journey, even though she has never gone anywhere without Eugenia telling her what to take and where to go. And in fact Baby doesn't know where she is headed - only that she was entirely happy in the previous night's dream, sitting aboard a train with a view of shooting stars.

Eugenia Lincoln is a practical person with no time for gee-gaws, whoop-de-whoops, or frivolity. When an unexpected package containing an accordion arrives at her house, she is determined to have nothing to do with it. But her plans to sell the accordion, destroy the accordion, and give the accordion away all end in frustration. How can Eugenia stop being tormented by this troublesome package? Might she discover that a bit of unforeseen frivolity could be surprisingly...joyous?

Holy unanticipated occurrences! It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!, is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry - and that Flora will be changed too.

Leroy Ninker is a small man with a big dream: he wants to be a cowboy, but for now he's just a thief. In fact, Leroy is robbing the Watsons' kitchen right this minute! As he drags the toaster across the counter ( screeeeeech) and drops it into his bag ( clannngggg), little does he know that a certain large pig who loves toast with a great deal of butter is stirring from sleep.

Mr. Watson and Mrs. Watson live ordinary lives. Sometimes, their lives feel a bit too ordinary. Sometimes, they wish something different would happen. And one day, it does, when someone unpredictable finds her way to their front door.

When a fortuneteller’s tent appears in the market square of the city of Baltese, orphan Peter Augustus Duchene knows the questions that he needs to ask: Does his sister still live? And if so, how can he find her? The fortuneteller’s mysterious answer (An elephant! An elephant will lead him there!) sets off a chain of events so remarkable, so impossible, that Peter can hardly dare to believe it. But it is - all of it - true.

Leroy Ninker has a hat, a lasso, and boots. What he doesn't have is a horse - until he meets Maybelline, that is, and then it's love at first sight. Maybelline loves spaghetti and sweet nothings, and she loves Leroy, too. But when Leroy forgets the third and final rule of caring for Maybelline, disaster ensues. Can Leroy wrestle fate to the ground, rescue the horse of his heart, and lasso loneliness for good?

To Mr. and Mrs. Watson, Mercy is not just a pig, she's a porcine wonder. And to the portly and good-natured Mercy, the Watsons are an excellent source of buttered toast, not to mention that buttery-toast feeling she gets when she snuggles into bed with them. This is not, however, so good for the Watsons' bed. BOOM! CRACK! Welcome to the wry and endearing world of Mercy Watson.

When the Watsons decide to zip their porcine wonder into a formfitting princess dress for Halloween, complete with tiara, they are certain that Mercy will be beautiful beyond compare. Mercy is equally certain she likes the sound of trick-or-TREATING and can picture those piles of buttered toast already. As for the Lincoln Sisters next door, how could they know that their cat would get into the act and lead them all on a Halloween "parade" of hysterical proportions?

When Louisiana Elefante's granny wakes her up in the middle of the night to tell her that the day of reckoning has arrived and they have to leave home immediately, Louisiana isn't overly worried. But this time, things are different. This time, Granny intends for them never to return. Separated from her best friends, Raymie and Beverly, Louisiana struggles to oppose the winds of fate (and Granny) and find a way home. But as Louisiana's life becomes entwined with the lives of the people of a small Georgia town she starts to worry that she is destined only for good-byes.