Darcy Pattison

Captain Whitney Black McKee is a rowdy pirate! After traveling the seven seas and fighting sea monsters, it's time to come back to homeport for a rest. But the Captain's sleep has gone all awry. She desperately closes her eyes, but cannot find sleep. Sleepless. What's a rowdy captain to do? She sends her crew a'thievin for a simple lullaby. But the rowdy heart doesn't always know what it wants or needs. It's not till Pappy appears that she finally...

What Happens When a Pirate Captain Can't Sleep? Captain Whitney Black McKee is a rowdy pirate! After traveling the seven seas and fighting sea monsters, it's time to come back to homeport for a rest. But the Captain's sleep has gone all awry. She desperately closes her eyes, but cannot find sleep. Sleepless. What's a rowdy captain to do? She sends her crew a'thievin for a simple lullaby. But the rowdy heart doesn't always know what it wants or needs....

I Want a Cat: My Opinion Essay By Darcy Pattison, Illustrated by Ewa O'Neill Hurrah for Essays! All writing lessons should be this much fun. When cousins Mellie and Dennis decide to get a cat, they consider carefully what breed would be best for each family. For example, Mellie wants a cat that pounces, but Dennis wants a lazy cat, like his lazy dog, Clark Kent. Mellie wants a lap cat, but Dennis just wants a warm body BESIDE him. They consider different...

A hectic chase inspires Dennis's amazing narrative essay. A romp with his best friend, a Bernese Mountain Dog named Clark Kent, inspires Dennis to write a narrative essay. Recently, Mom asked Dennis to put a leash on Clark Kent so they could take the dog to the veterinarian for shots. Clark gave them all a merry chase! There's lots of action to love here. In this third installment of the The Read and Write Series, children's book author and writing...

KIRKUS REVIEW: "Pattison takes a complicated scientific theory and makes it not just fairly understandable, but entertaining as well." In 1915, British astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington was fascinated with Einsteins new theory of general relativity. The theory talks about how forces push and pull objects in space. Einstein said that the sun's gravity could pull and bend light. To test this, astronomers decided to photograph a solar eclipse. The...

THE KITTENS, THE KITTYTUBERS, Book 2 Underdog Cat saves the day! Again. Angel Persian throws herself into the role of Underdog Cat to the delight of the Kittytube audience. Her views soar. But Angel also longs to try other things. Can a cat's body do acrobatics? Standing at a height, can she jump and do a double-flip before landing? As the kittens grow, they must learn to adapt to their changing bodies and find acting roles that will keep them...

When the Dust Bowl storms of the 1930s threatened to destroy U.S. farming and agriculture, Hugh Bennett knew what to do. For decades, he had studied the soils in every state, creating maps showing soil composition nationwide. He knew what should be grown in each area, and how to manage the land to conserve the soil. He knew what to do for weathering and erosion. To do that, he needed the government's help. But how do you convince politicians that...

Quiet on the set! Come behind the scenes of your favorite cat videos in this funny adventure for chapter book and intermediate readers. On a glittering night of destiny, a cat star is born. The Majestic Kennels, home to the famous cats of KittyTube, welcomes a new kitten, Angel Persian. Angel is eager to follow in the footsteps of her famous mother and father and become a Kittytube sensation. You'll be there when: Angel aces her first screen...

Junior Library Guild selection How long does it take for science to find an answer to a problem? On January 25, 1862, naturalist Charles Darwin received a box of orchids. One flower, the Madagascar star orchid, fascinated him. It had an 11.5" nectary, the place where flowers make nectar, the sweet liquid that insects and birds eat. How, he wondered, did insects pollinate the orchid? It took 130 years to find the answer. After experiments, he made...

The amazing voyage of Nefertiti, the Spidernaut Most spiders spin a web and passively wait for prey to come to them. Jumping spiders, by contrast, actively hunt by jumping to catch their food. What if a jumping spider was sent to the International Space Station? When it jumped, it would simply float. No one knew if the spider could hunt in a weightless environment. This nonfiction book for elementary kids chronicles the amazing voyage of Nefertiti,...