Pat McKissack

Messy Bessey shows herself to be a true friend and a good guest when she helps to clean up after a messy birthday sleepover.

Messy Bessey discovers that with proper care her garden will flourish.

A rhyming tale describing a magical place where surprises grow on trees and crocodiles have wings.

After having fun at their family reunion, Messy Bessey's family cleans up and leaves the park as beautiful as when they arrived.

A wily fox, notorious for stealing eggs, meets his match when he encounters a bold little girl in the woods who insists upon proof that he is a fox before she will be frightened.

After promising never to lie, Libby learns that it's not always necessary to blurt out the whole truth either.

Simple text and illustrations describe the life and accomplishments of the jazz trumpeter who was nicknamed Satchmo.

After barn mice make a collar with a bell to warn them when Marmalade the cat is approaching, Smart Mouse must devise a way to safely put the collar on her in this retelling of a Aesop fable.

In the summer of 1928, Lilly Belle Turner of Smyrna, Tennessee, participates in a young author's writing program, taught by Zora Neale Hurston and hosted by A'Lelia Walker in her Harlem teahouse at the height of the Harlem Renaissance.

A biography of the man who became an orator, writer, and leader in the abolitionist movement in the nineteenth century.