Central Kansas Library System

With each child you encounter, you have the power and opportunity to build up-- or, tragically, to tear down. You never know when you are making a memory. Stafford has collected stories that show that, if God stands a child before you, for even just a minute, it is a divine appointment.

When Reena, her little brother, Luke, and their parents first move to Maine, Reena doesn't know what to expect. She's ready for beaches, blueberries, and all the lobster she can eat. Instead, her parents "volunteer" Reena and Luke to work for an eccentric neighbor named Mrs. Falala, who has a pig named Paulie, a cat named China, a snake named Edna -- and that stubborn cow, Zora.

Matilda Wormwood's father thinks she's a little scab. Matilda's mother spends all afternoon playing bingo. And Matilda's headmistress, Miss Trunchbull? Well, she's the worst of all. She is a big bully, who thinks all her pupils are rotten and locks them in the dreaded chokey. As for Matilda, she's an extraordinary little girl with a magical mind - and now she's had enough. So all these grown-ups had better watch out, because Matilda is going to teach...

Nanny McPhee can tame even the most unruly children with a tap of her magic walking stick. Her latest challenge is the bratty brood of a recent widower, Mr. Brown. He is under pressure to find a new wife or lose his much-needed allowance from wealthy Aunt Adelaide. His love for scullery maid Evangeline remains unspoken as he wincingly woos the eagerly merry widow Mrs. Quickly; but Brown's raucous rugrats have a plan to make things right, especially...

"Great news--Kevin McCallister is spending the holidays in New York City. Bad news--his parents are spending them in Florida! Separated once again from his family, Kevin manages to find food, lodging and fun using his dad's credit card. But his big-spending solo act takes a dangerous turn when the Wet Bandits, Harry and Marv escape prison and also land in the Big Apple. Now, Kevin must outrun and outprank them again"--Container.

A little girl tells what she will do is she were in charge at her home.

"Tash doesn't want to go to camp, doesn't want to spend the summer with a bunch of strangers, doesn't want to be separated from the only two people she has ever been able to count on: her uncle Kevin, who saved her from foster care, and Cap'n Jackie, who lives next door. Camp turns out to be pretty fun, actually, but when Tash returns home, Cap'n Jackie is gone. And Tash needs her -- the made-up stories of dolphin-dragons, the warm cookies that make...

Molly is the daughter of a deceased rock legend who is, for the first time in her life, forced to work after her manager steals all her inheritance. With help of her friend, Molly becomes the nanny of Ray, the precocious daughter of a busy music executive. She learns as much about being an adult from Ray, as she teaches Ray about being a child.

Morris "Mud" Himmel has a problem. His parents desperately want to send him away to summer camp. He hates going to summer camp, and would do anything to get out of it. Talking to his friends, he realises that they are all facing the same sentence: a boring summer camp. Together with his friends, he hatches a plan to trick all the parents into sending them to a camp of his own design, which would actually be a parent-free paradise. Blackmailing former...

Explores in black-and-white photographs the special relationship between adults and children working together in many different settings.