Author Profile
Liz Garton Scanlon
20 Books
Liz Garton Scanlon is a celebrated author of children's picture books and middle-grade novels. Known for her lyrical prose and heartwarming stories, she creates relatable characters that resonate with young readers. Her extensive catalog includes the popular 'Bibsy Cross' chapter book series and the beloved picture book 'Bob, Not Bob!'.
When Lulu feels well, she climbs every tree she can find: tall trees, wide-branched trees, sticky-sap trees. Trees are where she feels free.
Then Lulu gets sick and has to stay inside. She wonders about the trees outside her window and whether the birds miss her. But sunlight brings an unexpected gift: the shadow of a tree on her wall. Lulu may not be able to go outside, but her imagination finds another way up.
Another Way to Climb a Tree is a quiet, inventive picture book about frustration, resilience, and creative play. It captures the ache of being stuck indoors and the joy of discovering that imagination can open a window when the real one has to stay closed.
6-8 Years
40 Pages
A sock can be a pocket for your toes. A hat can be a pocket for your hair. A chair can be a pocket for sitting, and a breath can be a pocket full of air.
This playful picture book looks at the world in a wonderfully surprising way. Through bouncy verse and everyday examples, it invites readers to notice how many things can hold, hide, carry, or shelter something else.
A Sock Is a Pocket for Your Toes is full of wordplay, imagination, and fresh comparisons. It is a cheerful read-aloud for children who enjoy clever language and for grown-ups who want a book that sparks observation, conversation, and creative thinking about ordinary objects.
6-8 Years
32 Pages
Posy, Megan, and Mae are best friends, the kind who share favorite things and ordinary days. Then Posy has to move away, and goodbye feels too hard to say.
The girls turn to something they love: baking pie. Stirring, rolling, filling, and sharing give them a way to be together when everything is changing. Soon their sad goodbye becomes a good-pie party, with friends, neighbors, memories, and sweetness all around.
The Good-Pie Party is a tender picture book about moving, friendship, and finding a just-right way to mark a hard change. Warm and reassuring, it gives young readers a gentle story about sadness, celebration, and the love that can stay even when someone leaves.
6-8 Years
34 Pages
Bibsy Cross likes helping. She likes school. She likes her best friend Natia, her cat, and most things that are easy-peasy, regular-pegular. But a class terrarium project turns out to be anything but simple.
Bibsy and her group are supposed to make a self-sustaining pickle-jar habitat, where plants and tiny creatures can live in balance. When the creepy-crawlies and greenery do not behave exactly as expected, Bibsy’s helpful instincts kick in fast.
The trouble is, helping nature sometimes means slowing down and noticing what is really needed. This warm chapter book blends classroom fun, science curiosity, bugs, friendship, and problem solving in a story that gives young readers plenty to think about without losing Bibsy’s lively spark.
6-8 Years
9-12 Years
129 Pages
Under a bright full moon, deep in the forest, a litter of wolf pups is born. They are tiny, sleepy, and watched over by Mama Wolf and the rest of the pack.
As the moon changes night by night, the pups change too. Their eyes open. Their paws stretch. They begin to tumble, explore, and discover the wild world around them. Each small step brings them closer to the moment when they can join the voices under the moonlit sky.
Full Moon Pups is a lyrical picture book in verse for young animal lovers. With gentle rhythm, natural details, and a cozy sense of wonder, it follows baby wolves through their first lunar cycle in the forest.
6-8 Years
21 Pages
A plain box is sitting in an ordinary room. But with a little imagination, it is not plain at all. It can become a boat, with a sail, a rudder, an anchor, and room for a brave captain and her stuffed-animal crew.
Soon the room turns into the high seas. There are storms to face, waves to cross, and adventure waiting just beyond the cardboard edge. All it takes is one box, one big idea, and the courage to pretend with your whole heart.
I Want a Boat! is a playful picture book about creative make-believe. With spare, lively language and a bright adventure at its center, it is perfect for readers who love turning everyday things into something grand.
6-8 Years
35 Pages
(That's a Lot of Time) (No, It's Not) (Yes, It Is)
Five minutes can feel like forever. Five minutes can disappear in a flash. It all depends on what you are doing.
Follow one busy boy through a day full of tiny stretches of time: waiting at the dentist, standing in line, sitting in the car, playing a favorite game, riding something thrilling, and squeezing in a little more reading before bed. The same five minutes keeps changing, depending on whether it is boring, exciting, uncomfortable, or cozy.
Clever, funny, and easy to recognize, Five Minutes turns a familiar family phrase into a playful look at how time feels. It is a smart read-aloud for children learning patience, routines, and the funny way minutes can stretch or shrink.
6-8 Years
34 Pages
Bibsy Cross loves school. She loves her family, her cat, her best friend Natia, and her science fair project. Most of all, she loves being Bibsy: curious, talkative, and full of ideas.
But this year, Mrs. Stumper does not seem to love all that Bibsy-ness. She thinks Bibsy talks too much, especially about science. When Bibsy goes a little too far and Mrs. Stumper punishes her by punching a hole in the paper apple on the classroom wall, Bibsy feels rotten inside.
This engaging chapter book introduces a bright, big-hearted eight-year-old facing a tough teacher relationship and a bruised sense of self. With school worries, friendship, family, and science fair excitement, Bibsy’s story is funny, tender, and easy to root for.
6-8 Years
9-12 Years
129 Pages
Bunny’s birthday has arrived, and the forest is getting ready to celebrate. There are fancy shoes, party clothes, hugs, kisses, singing, dancing, cake, presents, and friends all around.
Every page feels like part of the party, with small details to notice and a cozy rhythm that makes the day feel special from start to finish. Bunny is surrounded by family and forest friends, all sharing the happy rituals that make birthdays feel big, bright, and beloved.
Happy Birthday, Bunny! is a warm picture book for readers who love celebrations, animals, and read-aloud stories with a gentle bounce. It captures the excitement of a birthday without losing the snug feeling of being loved.
6-8 Years
32 Pages
A shell on the beach. A meal shared together. A storm, a song, a hug, a quiet night sky. All the World follows a circle of family and friends through one full day, noticing the small and enormous things that make life feel connected.
With rhyming text and richly detailed illustrations, this picture book moves from beach to market to gathering place to evening rest. It celebrates nature, community, family, and the way ordinary moments can feel wide and full of meaning.
Gentle, lyrical, and expansive, All the World is a memorable read-aloud for children and families. It invites young readers to look closely at where they are, who they love, and how much of the world can be found in a single day.
6-8 Years
40 Pages
Noodle is a worm having a bad day. He does not feel wonderful, impressive, or especially easy to like. Luckily, his friend Lou is nearby.
Lou is a bird, which might make him an unusual best friend for a worm. But Lou knows just what to say. With kindness, humor, and steady friendship, he helps Noodle see himself in a better light.
Noodle & Lou is a sweet, reassuring picture book about being liked exactly as you are. Its unlikely animal friendship gives young readers a simple but meaningful story about encouragement, self-doubt, and the comfort of a friend who sees your good parts even when you cannot.
6-8 Years
32 Pages
In a busy community garden, good things are growing everywhere. There are flowers, fruits, vegetables, helping hands, and neighbors of all ages working side by side.
This lyrical picture book gives thanks for the plants that sprout from the soil and the friendships that grow around them. Children and adults dig, plant, water, harvest, and share, turning a garden into a place of care and connection.
Thank You, Garden is a bright celebration of nature, community, and teamwork. For young readers, it offers a warm look at how people can care for the earth and for one another, one seed, one leaf, and one shared moment at a time.
6-8 Years
36 Pages
On the tippy-top of a steep hill, the wind is wild. It blows and howls and turns life upside down for the man who lives there.
Kate sees the problem and comes up with a plan. With a wheelbarrow full of young trees, she makes her way up the hill, bringing green growing things that can help soften and steady the windy place.
Kate, Who Tamed the Wind is a rhythmic picture book about noticing a problem and finding a thoughtful solution. With trees at the heart of the story, it gently introduces young readers to the way nature can protect, shelter, and change a place for the better.
6-8 Years
41 Pages
Art does not have to stay on an easel. It can be music, stories, cooking, performance, paint, movement, and any idea brave enough to begin.
In Think Big, a classroom of energetic children explores creativity in many forms. They try, make, imagine, and discover that art can come from many hands and many kinds of minds. The book’s lively poem follows the joy of creating together, where one idea can lead to another and every child has something to offer.
Warm, playful, and encouraging, this picture book is a celebration of imagination, classroom community, and artistic expression. It is a strong choice for readers who like making things, sharing ideas, and seeing how creativity can fill a whole room.
6-8 Years
32 Pages
Step onto the trail and look closely. The Grand Canyon is not only wide views and towering stone. It is also a lizard, a petroglyph, a glimpse of moonlight, a changing sky, and the feeling of being small in a place that is grand.
In the Canyon follows a child hiking with a group into the Grand Canyon for the first time. Through simple rhyming text and detailed illustrations, the journey reveals both the vast beauty and the tiny discoveries waiting along the way.
This picture book is part nature walk, part travel adventure, and part quiet celebration of wonder. It invites young readers to slow down, observe, and feel the awe of one of the world’s remarkable landscapes.
6-8 Years
40 Pages
One bird waits high above town, small and still against the wide sky. Then more birds arrive: two, three, four, and soon a whole flock is sweeping, turning, and flashing through the air.
In this lyrical picture book, counting becomes part of a breathtaking natural wonder as starlings gather into a murmuration. Their shapes shift and swirl while a hunting hawk watches nearby, and the flock must move together in a dazzling dance of safety and surprise.
With poetic language and rich illustrations, One Dark Bird invites young readers to notice patterns, numbers, movement, and the wild beauty that can appear right over a familiar town.
6-8 Years
40 Pages
Frances has big energy, and the city does not always seem ready for it. There are walls she cannot climb, rooms where she cannot run, and streets and shops crowded with rules.
Then Frances visits her cousins in the country, where there are roads to race down, ladders to leap from, animals to discover, and wide-open places that seem made for moving. For the first time, her wild, curious spirit has room to stretch.
This lively picture book celebrates the different pleasures of city and country life, while gently exploring what it means to belong in more than one place. Frances’s trip is full of motion, family, and the happy surprise of seeing home in a new way.
6-8 Years
35 Pages
*to be read as though you have the worst cold ever
Little Louie has a cold, and everything feels wrong. His nose is stuffed, his ears are crackly, and what he wants most is Mom.
But when Louie calls for her, his clogged-up voice makes Mom sound like Bob. And Bob is not Mom. Bob is the family dog, ready with slobber, wiggles, and a whole lot of not-helpful help.
This funny picture book turns a miserable sick day into a read-aloud comedy of mix-ups, repetition, and perfectly timed silliness. With its warm family setting and laugh-out-loud misunderstanding, Bob, Not Bob! is just right for kids who know that being sick can make you feel small, grumpy, and very ready to be understood.
6-8 Years
40 Pages
Bibsy Cross loves her bike, her best friend Natia, her cat, her family, and the library. When the library holds a bike-a-thon fundraiser to buy more books, Bibsy is ready to pedal hard.
At first, the plan seems easy-peasy, regular-pegular: ride her bike, collect donations, and win. But the more Bibsy focuses on coming in first, the more she has to wonder whether she is racing for the right reason.
This cheerful chapter book follows an energetic eight-year-old through a school-and-community story full of big feelings, good intentions, and everyday humor. With biking, libraries, friendship, and a character who is wonderfully herself, Bibsy’s adventure is a lively choice for newly confident readers.
6-8 Years
9-12 Years
129 Pages
Room 109 does not have a fluffy hamster, a chirping bird, or a lizard with a dramatic stare. Arlo’s classroom has a plant. A green, quiet, not-very-exciting plant.
At least, that is how it seems at first. When Arlo gives the plant a name, Jerry becomes something the whole class can care about. Watering, watching, waiting, and wondering turn into a shared classroom adventure as Jerry begins to grow in ways the students did not expect.
Funny, warm, and full of school-day charm, The World’s Best Class Plant is a picture book about responsibility, patience, and discovering that living things do not have to wiggle or squeak to become wonderfully important.
6-8 Years
21 Pages
