Laura Alary

"As a child, Maria Mitchell longed to see beyond her little island of Nantucket. With help from her father, she discovered that, if you knew how to read them, the stars could tell you where you were -- and where you needed to go. Maria spent hours on the roof of her house scanning the sky -- finding constellations, nebulae, meteors, double stars. When the King of Denmark offered a prize to the first person to find a new comet, she did just that. In...

"Grace thinks her neighbour Larry's tiny garden is one of the wonders of the world. She helps him hoe, weed and water -- and together they solve problems from hungry squirrels to lettuce-eating slugs. As spring approaches, Grace helps Larry start hundreds of tomato plants in little pots, and Larry brings them to the school where he teaches. Grace wants to know what the students will do with all those plants. Larry tells her to wait and see, but promises...

"Nana's nesting dolls are all exactly the same. White frills, rosy cheeks, and six perfect smiles. Except for the smallest one--unpainted, it is a raw peanut. So she decides to pull out her markers and give it a face. But then, looking at the others, she realizes all of their perfectly matching smiles don't feel quite right. She has many faces for each of her emotions. So, she decides to use her marker to fix them too. But, when Nana sees her dolls,...