It's fun to tell time as you dance around the clock!

Put on your dancing shoes and get ready to boogie! It's American Batstand - a twelve-hour rock and roll extravaganza with Click Dark as your host. Decked in go-go boots and bobby sox, the buoyant bats bebop their way around the clock. And there's a special guest appearance at the end!

With their swinging text and groovy illustrations, the creators of Bat Jamboree and Bats on Parade don't miss a beat when it comes to the basics. Telling time has never been so much fun!

Mason and Carrie Marie can't get up the courage to ask each other to dance. Russ's girlfriend has died, and now he's just trying to live without her. Peggy Lee has grown up with Tennessee--how can she ever think of him as more than a friend?
In these moving tales and others, Kathi Appelt captures the sometimes amusing, sometimes touching missteps of some unforgettable students, who come together one last time for the most memorable night of their young lives.

The Bat Jamboree was held early this year, at the old drive-in movie not too far from here. It was standing room only as the houselights went down. The spotlight came up -- there wasn't a sound! Then:

1 bat sang.

2 bats flapped.

3 bats cha-cha-ed

4 bats tapped.

Every year a troupe of 55 buoyant bats comes up with 10 fabulous acts to entertain and instruct an enthusiatic audience. And every year the bats top themselves when they perform the grandest finale of all . . .

With its exuberant text and enchanting illustrations, Bat Jamboree is both a counting book and a thrilling theatrical event.

From award-winning author Elissa Brent Weissman comes a collection of quirky, smart, and vulnerable childhood works by some of today's foremost children's authors and illustrators--revealing young talent, the storytellers they would one day become, and the creativity they inspire today.

Everyone's story begins somewhere...

For Linda Sue Park, it was a trip to the ocean, a brand-new typewriter, and a little creative license.

For Jarrett J. Krosoczka, it was a third grade writing assignment that ignited a creative fire in a kid who liked to draw.

For Kwame Alexander, it was a loving poem composed for Mother's Day--and perfected through draft after discarded draft.

For others, it was a teacher, a parent, a beloved book, a word of encouragement. It was trying, and failing, and trying again. It was a love of words, and pictures, and stories.

Your story is beginning, too. Where will it go?

When Baby Bird says good-bye to his mama at school each morning, he feels sad. Mama Bird feels sad, too. Sometimes it's hard to be apart. But as Mama Bird says, the love they share is with them always, keeping them close until the best part of the day--when they are together again. -From the illustrator of the bestselling Time for Bed, with more than 725,000 copies sold -A heartwarming story about the universal experience of parents and children being temporarily separated