Children's Bookstore Site

For the most part, books for children will be a hold out to the general trend towards electronic books. The process of making a book seems to build in warmth and tone. There is the smell and texture of freshly cracked open storybooks that obviously does not translate across the screen. Who really wants to replace sitting side by side with their child on an overstuffed couch or chair and watching them turn the next page of a story. Do you really believe the experience of clicking a mouse is the same? Plus looking at a backlit screen is a completely different visual process than seeing a light reflected image.

This book and others from Morningside is filled with fantasy blended with the real. Bartram is a tiny beach mouse who lives on a gulf coast barrier island. Every day he runs away from Snakes, Owls and Cats while trying to find seeds and other tasty morsels to eat. When a strange beautiful flower blossoms on his part of the sand dune closest to the ocean, wondrous happenings occur. Bartram tries to figure out if the flower brought forth these miracles or were the miracles always there in waiting. With 20 fabulous hand drawn illustrations to help young readers follow the action, “Bartram and the Blue Morning Glory” is one of the finest storybooks for children to come along in decades.

For those who believe that good books for children just aren’t being made anymore we present the 2010-11 catalog from Morningside Books. Featured are four special children’s book titles. Our first release of 2010 was the spiritually insightful young adult novel, “The Midget Green Swamp Moose.” After two years in production we have released for preview, “The Heart of Nine Tigers.” We have also released the first book in the Morningside wildlife series, “Alligators Can’t Stand Butterflies.” Upcoming books for 2011 include a second wildlife series book “Bartram and the Blue Morning Glory,” and a pastel illustrated short story for children titled, “Thirty Cents Saved For Ice Cream.”

“The Heart of Nine Tigers” is one of a rare breed of historical fiction books for children. The story takes place in ancient China 1000 years ago. The book features a story within a story device that allows the central character nine year old Su Tai to exist in both real time and the past. This lets young readers travel more deeply into the accurately depicted historically correct setting. Indeed the correctly drawn exterior illustrations of 1080 AD China and the invasion of the northern provinces by the mighty Genghis Khan when combined with the well crafted story predicate to traveling back in time.

In the realm of realistic fiction books for children, Morningside offers a wonderfully accurate look at life in the deep swampy woodlands of rural Florida. Most people are unaware that the Florida Panhandle coastline is one of the least disturbed collection of natural habitats in the world. Readers explore this world through “Alligators Can’t Stand Butterflies,” a ridiculously funny look at animal interaction in a realistically written and watercolor painted collection of animal and plant life short stories. Soon to be released is a second book in the Morningside Wildlife series, “Bartram and the Blue Morning Glory.”