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If I Were a Zombie
Artist: Eric OrchardPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95If I were a zombie
I’d package my drool
put it in a mason jars
sell it at school.In this hilarious picture book written by Hackmatack Award-nominated author Kate Inglis and brilliantly illustrated by Eric Orchard, two best friends imagine ordinary life as classic monsters and mythical creatures. What would Evan the Zombie do for the school talent show? Who would Poppy the Muddy Wood Fairy have over for dinner? From an alien with three hundred eyeballs to giants and goblin queens, this book of tickle trunk fun will delight kids of all ages.
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The Little Book of Nova Scotia
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$16.95The magic of Peggy’s Cove at night, the rugged shorelines and clifftops, the magical expanse of the Cape Breton Highlands mid-winter—all represent the beauty that is Nova Scotia. Journey through this incredible landscape with award-winning photojournalist Len Wagg. These remarkable photos not only capture the immense beauty of Nova Scotia’s natural landscape but also capture the spirit of the people who live in it everyday.
Features approximately 85 photos with captions and a foreword from popular Nova Scotia writer Silver Donald Cameron. Now in a smaller format and with 10 new photographs.
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The Thundermaker
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Mi’kmaw artist Alan Syliboy’s The Thundermaker is based on Alan’s spectacular mixed-media exhibit of the same name. In the book, Big Thunder teaches his son, Little Thunder, about the important responsibility he has making thunder for his people. Little Thunder learns about his Mi’kmaw identity through his father’s teachings and his mother’s traditional stories. Syliboy’s spectacular, vibrant artwork brings the story of Little Thunder to vivid life.
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Abigail’s Wish
$22.95Spring. Beautiful blossoms. Chirping peepers. Trees swaying in their new greenery. Pussy willows glistening in furry white coats. Rain and warmth. New births and new beginnings…
Ten-year-old Abigail Price is excited about spring in her new home in Birchtown. Spring means lots of things, like flower buds and fresh leaves and her Aunt Dinah’s new baby. She’s hoping it also means she’ll get a new dress to wear for the celebration, but new clothing, like many things, is hard to come by.
The first children’s picture book set in historic Birchtown, Nova Scotia, Abigail’s Wish is a window into the life of a Black Loyalist family in the early years of the historic colony. Through the eyes of young Abigail, this stunning collaboration between poet and novelist Gloria Ann Wesley and awardwinning illustrator Richard Rudnicki will teach readers about Black Loyalist life, and the value of friendship and patience.
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Maclean (2nd edition)
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$16.95Twenty-five years after the Great War, John Maclean is still struggling to carve out a meaningful existence in his small New Brunswick hometown.
One late summer day he embarks on a seemingly prosaic search for a little money, a little booze, and a birthday gift for his mother. But he’s haunted by memories—of war, of his cruel father, of opportunities wasted and lost—and each moment is shadowed by his bleak history. Shell-shocked and alcoholic, Maclean is divided between a lonely present and a violent past.
With clean and evocative prose, author Allan Donaldson exquisitely depicts a shattered war veteran’s search for peace. New edition.
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Touch of Gold
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95When thirteen-year-old Jamie Francis’s parents divorced, she and her mother moved from Halifax to the small town of River Bend, Nova Scotia. Jamie doesn’t have any friends and isn’t sure how she’ll ever make any, when she comes across a neglected-looking horse in a field: a golden palomino she names Peach.
After befriending Peach’s widowed owner, Jamie learns that her newfound friend is being sold to notorious horse-trainer, Valerie Scott, at nearby Tamarack Stables. Jamie offers to pitch in, mucking out stalls and doing chores around the barn, and becomes enchanted with the world of competitive horseback riding. She even makes a few friends, including Val’s cute red-headed son, Nick, and Naomi, a popular girl from school. But she still isn’t sure if she fits in. If only she could ride Peach herself…
Will horseback-riding be the key to Jamie’s happiness, or will it gallop off into the sunset without her?
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Who’s a Scaredy Cat ? (revised edition) A Story of the Halifax Explosion
Artist: Marijke SimonsPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95This is the story of two families in Dartmouth at the time of the Halifax Explosion, December 1917. Flossie Wright is a prankster, taking pleasure in practical jokes. Isobel Morton, whose father is listed as missing in the war, dislikes Flossie’s jokes, and is ridiculed by the other girl. Although Isobel knows she is a not a “scaredycat,” Flossie’s jibes still hurt. Can Isobel prove her bravery and win Flossie’s friendship in the terrible days that follow the Halifax explosion? Who’s a Scaredy-Cat? is an enjoyable, historically detailed novel now back in print. Includes black and white illustrations by Marijke Simons.
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Pumpkin People
Artist: Ron LightburnPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95Now in a new smaller format, Pumpkin People tells the magical secrets of Kentville’s famous residents. Sandra Lightburn’s verse reveals the nighttime revelry of the half-funny, half-spooky figures; Ron Lightburn’s colourful illustrations bring their wild celebrations to life.
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A History of Disaster (2nd edition) The Worst Storms, Accidents, and Conflagrations in Atlantic Canada
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95A History of Disaster chronicles 43 of Atlantic Canada’s most deadly disasters, many well-remembered and none ever forgotten. Included are not only the region’s iconic disasters like the Halifax Explosion and the Springhill mine collapses, but also lesser-known events, such as the 1977 Saint John jail fire. Photos and illustrations of the aftermath reveal the heartbreak and bravery that accompanied these life-altering catastrophes. Now in a new size.
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Big Book of Lexicon Vol 1, 2, 3
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Theresa Williams’s lexicon puzzles have been hugely popular since they were first published in 1988. Half-crossword, half-word search, lexicon puzzles engage and entertain fans of all ages. This edition brings back volumes 1, 2, and 3 and presents them as one large book for hours of fun!
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Mary Morrison’s Cape Breton Christmas
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95The Halifax Chronicle-Herald calls award-winning comedian Bette MacDonald “a superlative actress, a polished ad libber…making the audience howl with delight by a lift of her eyebrows, a shift of elbow or a single word.”
For years, Bette has delighted audiences with her irreverent and lovable Cape Breton character Mary Morrison. Now Mary is here to entertain readers with her stories and memories of the Christmas season. Mary Morrison’s Cape Breton Christmas is a treasury of all things holiday, including Mary’s advice for coping with family, gift-giving dos and don’ts, and her favourite seasonal recipes. A hilarious and colourful collection of Cape Breton Christmas humour brought to life with over 25 photographs.
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What I Learned About Politics Inside the Rise-and Collapse-of Nova Scotia’s NDP Government
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95On October 8, 2013, Nova Scotia’s NDP government went down to a devastating election defeat. Premier Darrell Dexter lost his own seat, and the party held the dubious distinction of being the first one-term majority government in over 100 years.
In this new memoir, former NDP finance minister and MLA Graham Steele tries to make sense of the election result and shares what he’s learned from a fifteen-year career in provincial politics. In his trademark candid style, Steele pulls no punches in assessing what’s right—and what’s often wrong—with our current political system. Includes an insert of colour photographs and a foreword from CBC Information Morning host Don Connolly.
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Chloe Sparrow a novel
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Chloe Sparrow is a twenty-five-year-old TV producer with a hit show on her hands. The Single Guy is a popular new reality series, where dozens of women are trying to woo bachelor veterinarian Austin Hawke. As the filming gets underway, though, accident-prone Chloe finds herself in one predicament after another: a wayward puck hits her in the face during a hockey game, she sprains her ankle at a dude ranch, and she falls out of a boat at high speed. But Chloe has bigger problems. The stress of her home life with her nutty but loveable Gramps and Aunt Ollie is getting to her, her job is consuming her, and painful memories from her past threaten to overwhelm her. To top it off, her co-worker Amanda is pressuring her to find a boyfriend. It doesn’t take long before Chloe realizes that not having all her wishes come true might not be such a bad idea.
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Father’s Message in a Bottle
Editor: Tyler HaydenPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$16.95The responsibility of a father is to be active and present with his children and partner, constantly finding ways to connect and reconnect so his kids know that he loves them and will be there for them, no matter what.
Father’s Message in a Bottle is an inspirational collection of over 60 letters from fathers around the world to the people they love.
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Animal Signatures (2nd edition)
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$9.95Animal Signatures is a handy field guide that teaches one how to recognize and interpret animal signs — the tracks, droppings and nibbled twigs that animals leave behind.
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Le Quai 21
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$16.95For years, Pier 21 in Halifax served as the front door to Canada, the entryway through which more than a million immigrants passed. The radical transition they experienced produced a rich group of stories, presented here in French for the first time. Le Quai 21: La porte d’entrée qui a changé le Canada captures the hope and trepidation of these strangers in a new land. Le Quai 21 is a moving account of the human drama that unfolded at this historic site. Includes over fifty images of staff, volunteers, soldiers, children, war brides, refugees, and immigrants who were a part of the Pier 21 story. New French edition.
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In the Company of Animals Stories of Extraordinary Encounters
Editor: Pam ChamberlainPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Animals fascinate us humans, and we relate to them in a variety of ways. Whether we view them as companions, as workmates, as symbols, as totems, or as food, animals matter to us, and we want to tell their stories. In this collection, 38 writers from across Canada tell thought-provoking stories of extraordinary encounters with animals. From tributes to a favourite cat or dog to tales of a chance encounter with a moose or a cougar, the writers cover a wide range of encounters with a wide variety of animals—from rats and salamanders to wolves and bears. These writers are people who pay attention to animals, their natures and personalities and what they can teach us, and they ask us to pay attention too. In the Company of Animals features contributions from well-known Canadian authors including David Weale, Linda Olson, David Adams Richards, Richard Wagamese, and Farley Mowat, as well as many new and promising voices.
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Wildflowers of the Maritimes A Guide to Identifying 150 of the Region’s Wild Plants
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95Identification is the first major step towards a greater appreciation and understanding of our natural environment. Wildflowers of the Maritimes was written to meet the needs of hikers, students, amateur naturalists, resource professionals, or anyone looking for an affordable, compact, easy-to-follow guide to take with them into the field.
Discover the wide array of wildflowers in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island with detailed photographs, drawings, and profile descriptions that include information on a plant’s origins, leaves, flowers, fruits, frequency, habitat, and range. Naturalist Edmund Redfield profiles 150 species of wildflowers from 53 plant families in an organized and easily accessible way. Includes over 350 colour photographs and black and white illustrations.
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Girl on the Run
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95When seventeen-year-old track and field star Jesse Collins’s dreams of a full scholarship are shattered after the sudden death of her dad, she leaves home to work as a summer camp counsellor to escape the nosy stares in small town…and her own secret guilt. After a mix-up at registration, she’s put in charge of a boys’ cabin, and the head counsellor, Kirk, predicts she won’t last the first two weeks.
In the midst of fending off four twelve-year-old boys who are hell-bent on mortifying her and a growing attraction to Kirk, Jesse finds the inspiration to run again from an unlikely source. After all, a good pair of legs can take a girl far, but it’s facing the truth that makes all the difference.
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Duffy Stardom to Senate to Scandal
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$29.95Mike Duffy made his name as a political reporter, and in the process became one of Prince Edward Island’s most famous exports. He cast himself as the ultimate insider, Parliament Hill’s man in the know. It made him a household name and one of the Canada’s best-paid journalists. But Duffy wanted to get even closer and lobbied his way into the Canadian Senate, with dire results. Veteran journalist Dan Leger tells the story of Duffy’s rise to the top in Canadian media, his entanglement with the Harper Conservatives, and the scandal that made him one of the most controversial figures in contemporary politics. Includes a foreword by CBC’s Peter Mansbridge and an eight-page colour photo insert.
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Joy of Ginger 2nd edition
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$16.95Slice, smash, chop, grate, and juice it: the addition of fresh ginger to any recipe is guaranteed to send your taste buds into overdrive. Long used in its powered form in Maritime kitchens, fresh ginger –for centuries valued as a preservative and digestive aid –transforms the ordinary into the exotic. And in these health-conscious times, it adds few calories and little fat but packs a powerful zing that will keep you coming back for more.
The Joy of Ginger, with over 150 tantalizing recipes, will have you using the gnarly rhizome in sauces and preserves, stir-frys and salads, and combining it with tofu, lentil, and noodles. Make mouth-watering appetizers like Smoked Salmon Ginger Butter Canapés, healthy and flavourful Ginger and Sweet Potato Soup, and a Real Ginger Beer. The added zip of ginger will have you once again relishing gingerbread, that classic comfort food, while your dinner guests will beg for Ginger Cheesecake, Truffled Ginger, Ginger Ice Cream and Apple, Ginger and Mint Sorbet. With this cookbook and a “hand” of ginger, the taste bud-tingling possibilities are endless!
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Seashore Life of Eastern Canada A Guide to Identifying Intertidal Marine Species
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95A field guide to over 80 of the most common species—including shells, crabs, seaweed, anemones, sea stars, and urchins—found in the Eastern Canadian intertidal zone. Seashore Life of Eastern Canada provides plenty of information for beachcombers to use as they explore the ocean shore. Each writeup includes an introduction that defines the intertidal zone where the species can be found and provides information about its habitat and appearance. Easy-to-use symbols and detailed colour photographs make identification a breeze.
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Sinking Deeper Or, My Questionable(Possibly Heroic) Decision to Invent a Sea Monster
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95The tiny fishing community of Deeper Harbour is in serious trouble, and so is fourteen-year-old Roland MacTavish. His parents are separated, and his mother has just told him that she’s moving to Ottawa and taking him with her. She doesn’t think Deeper Harbour, with its closing school and dismal economic future, has anything to offer her and Roland anymore. But Roland disagrees. He loves his father, his weird friend Dulsie, and most of all, his wild, hilarious, unpredictable grandfather, Angus. So with the help of his friends, he does what any rational teenager would do: he invents a sea monster.
News of the monster spreads, until real live tourists start to turn off the new highway and visit Deeper Harbour, giving everyone hope that the town may actually be resuscitated. But before he can celebrate his successes, Roland faces a sadness that goes far beyond separated parents and new cities, and finally discovers that change, however frightening, is not the most painful thing in the world.
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New Brunswick: An Illustrated History
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Originally the land of the Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, and Passamaquoddy, New Brunswick has a colourful and significant history. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the province was settled by marsh workers and farmers from northwestern France and thousands of Loyalist refugees from a newly independent United States. After a golden age of lumbering, shipbuilding, and overseas trade in the nineteenth century, its economy declined and adjustment to the new continental economy was slow and trying. In the 1960s, premier Louis Robichaud’s Equal Opportunity program granted French-speaking Acadians, long second-class citizens in the province, cultural recognition. Today, New Brunswick remains the only officially bilingual province in Canada.
A lively narrative drawn entirely from published sources, New Brunswick: An Illustrated History is for general readers interested in the development of the province. Over one hundred historical photographs document this changing province, from its beginnings to present day.
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Quai 21: Écoutez mon histoire
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$15.95Découvrez des moments parmi les plus marquants de l’histoire du Canada en apprenant à connaître les enfants et les familles débarqués au Quai 21 de Halifax. Venus de pays lointains tels l’Estonie, l’Italie et l’Ukraine (pour n’en nommer que quelques-uns), ces immigrants ont tous franchi les « ports de la liberté » pour faire du Canada leur nouvelle patrie.
Jamie, un « enfant invité » originaire d’Ecosse et Mariette, une petite orpheline juive, ont tous deux été envoyés au Canada à un jeune âge afin d’échapper à la même guerre. La famille de Heili, in jeune Estonienne, a fui le régime communiste russe en prenant la mer à bord du Walnut. La famille de Luigi est venue d’Italie chercher du travail au Canada après la guerre et la famille de Maryke est arrivée de Hollande à la rechercher de terres à cultiver.
Aujourd’hui connu sous le nom de Mussée canadien de l’immigration, le Quai 21 a accueilli plus d’un million de nouveaux Canadiens, de 1928 à 1971. Beaucoup d’entre eux craignaient ce que leur réservait leur pays d’adoption. Cependant, toutes ces familles, même si elles étaient de cultures et d’origines différentes, ont cru à promesse d’un vie meilleure et plus sûre que leur offrait le Canada. En débarquant au pays, les immigrants échappaient au passé, emportant dans leur cœur de précieux souvenirs de leur lieu d’origine. Le Quai 21 représentait le premier pas vers une nouvelle vie.
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The Strangers’ Gallery
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95St. John’s archivist Michael Lowe’s life is turned on its head when a Dutch acquaintance, Anton Aalders, arrives on his doorstep in 1995. Anton is searching for a father he never met, ostensibly a Newfoundland soldier who was part of the Allied forces that liberated the Netherlands at the end of the Second World War. Anton’s visit stretches from a few days to a few months, reluctant as he is to go in search of his father, and keen to learn as much as he can about Newfoundland, its history, and its people. Rabble-rouser and ardent Newfoundland patriot Brendan “Miles” Harnett, Michael’s friend and sometime bugbear, is obsessed with his own search for the lost “fatherland” of Newfoundland, which relinquished its political independence in 1934. Miles is only too eager to teach Anton—and Michael—the shameful, forgotten history (as he sees it) of the lost country of Newfoundland. The Strangers’ Gallery is a finely crafted, at times humorous, novel about the painful search for identity—both political and personal.
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Music is for Everyone
Artist: Sydney SmithPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Music is for Everyone is sure to get you excited about making music! Singer-songwriter Jill Barber takes her young readers through many different kinds of music—hip hop, jazz, classical, folk—and instruments in an energetic, rhyming tour. Sydney Smith’s gleeful illustrations capture all the joy that comes from making music—in all its forms!
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Here Babies, There Babies
Artist: Carmen MokPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$10.95This delightful board book for babies follows baby on a typical day: Babies at the park, at the store, and at the library. Babies having their naps. Babies being busy! Vivid, colourful artwork complements the bold, rhythmic text. For babies up to age 2.
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Keeping Things Whole
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95It’s 1998 and Antony Williams is about to meet his match. A native of Windsor, Ontario, Antony is the child of a demanding single mother and an absconding Vietnam War resister who got too used to leaving home, country, and family. With a keen eye on the hybrid Windsor-Detroit landscape, backhanded affection for his hometown, and a growing understanding of his own family’s place in its bootleg history, Antony makes his living as a house painter by day before catapulting loads of Canadian weed across the river to Detroit by night.
Then he meets Kate Chan, a beautiful, street-smart law student, who calls his bluff and picks apart his personal mythology. Ultimately she presents him with his own hard choice and forces him to realize he’s been smuggling much more than he knows. Keeping Things Whole recounts the arc of their relationship and is cut with Antony’s entertaining manifestoes on marijuana, legality, art, theatre, sex, money, and lineage.
With this, his second novel, Darryl Whetter gives us a maddeningly cocky but introspective hero, and his frank, nuanced portrait of a border city and its underground history.
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Woodchips and Beans (new edition) Life in the Early Lumber Woods of Nova Scotia
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$29.95Lumbering in Nova Scotia has a long and storied history, dating back nearly for centuries. A rich resource and lose to world markets, lumbering has played an important role in the development of the province, employing thousands of men and woman over the years.This oral history, covering a 30-year period from the 1920s to the 1940s, captures the personal experiences of those choppers, scalers, swayers, yarders, mill hands and cooks who were part of this rugged experience.
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I’m Movin’ On The Life and Legacy of Hank Snow
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Born in tiny Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, Hank Snow enjoyed a musical career that spanned five decades and sales of more than 80 million albums. In I’m Movin’ On, journalist Vernon Oickle chronicles Snow’s hardscrabble life, from his destitute childhood in Queens County to international fame. Leaving no stone unturned in his richly detailed profile of The Singing Ranger, Oickle exposes the highs and lows of Snow’s career, and his journey (“Everywhere, man”) from small East Coast radio stations to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Includes a foreword from Hank’s son, Jimmie Rodgers Snow, a timeline, discography, and 75 photographs.
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Évangéline Récits pour jeunes lecteurs
Artist: Patsy MacKinnonPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$11.95Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, Evangeline, tells the story of two young people deported from beautiful Acadie just before they are to be married—and their search for each other that lasts the rest of their lives. First published in 1847, the poem has been important to Acadian identity ever since.In Évangéline: Récits pour jeunes lecteurs, the tragic story of Evangeline and Gabriel’s Deportation is recounted to a new generation. In simple prose true to Longfellow’s poem, Hélène Boudreau describes the utopian village of Grand-Pré where Evangeline grows up, the traumatizing Deportation, and Evangeline’s relentless search across America for her true love. Patsy MacKinnon’s stunning illustrations bring the story to life in full colour.Évangéline: Récits pour jeunes lecteurs is a vital, French-language interpretation for children of Longfellow’s classic.
