Books like The Secret Staircase
By Jill Barklem
For the kid who always wanders off mid-task to poke around somewhere new, this is the story that says exploring is its own kind of magic. cozy, hushed, and full of wintery anticipation
A boy who loves stars decides to catch one for himself, trying a tall tree and a paper rocket ship before finding an answer in an unexpected place.
A curious fox named Marco joins a ship captained by a deer and crewed by pigeons, sailing off in search of a wondrous island and answers to his endless questions.
A girl's walking house trips down a mountainside, scattering her found family of creatures across the hills, and now she must gather everyone and track down her runaway home.
A boy named Carlos climbs a tree in the Costa Rican cloud forest, dropping his banana-leaf umbrella below, where a tree frog, baby tapir, jaguar, and more all try to squeeze inside as it floats along.
A hopeful young troll sets sail with his family to Lonely Island in search of treasure, only to find the sun has set — leaving them to search by moonlight alone.
When the Primm family moves into their new apartment on East 88th Street, they find a crocodile named Lyle living in the bathtub — and slowly, surprisingly, come to love him.
A girl named Emily writes to her teacher, Mr. Blueberry, insisting a blue whale is living in her pond, and the two trade letters all summer as he tries to set her straight.
An imaginative boy dreams up the ultimate house, sketching in a racetrack, a flying playroom, and a gigantic slide as his ideas grow wilder with every rhyme.
A small boy is invited to tea at the palace and always asks the same question — may he bring a friend? — and each time, a surprising animal guest shows up beautifully behaved.
Two scarecrows, Betty O'Barley and Harry O'Hay, fall in love and plan a wedding in the fields, gathering the farm's animals and birds to help them celebrate.
A young witch with a nose that glows blue sets her alarm so she won't be late for the midnight flight of Scurry 13 — but a band of trick-or-treaters tempts her off course.
On a school trip to the Empire State Building, a boy is whisked away by a mischievous cloud to the Cloud Dispatch Center for Sector 7, where he starts sketching wild new cloud shapes for bored clouds.
