The Sunflower Story

This is a fictional rhyming story written for children about a conversation between a sad sunflower and the sun during which the sunflower recognizes and comes to appreciate its own uniqueness and value. As the story begins, the sunflower has a negative attitude about who it is and its purpose in life. The sun patiently turns each of the sunflowers negative assessments of itself into positive attributes. As the story ends, the sun succeeds in showing the sunflower the importance of its existence. Children reading this story will see themselves in a new positive light and gain more appreciation of their own individuality and self-worth. This is a delightful tale for parents to read to their young children and could open a heartfelt dialogue between parent and child.

A young boy creates a summer playhouse by planting sunflowers and saves the seeds to make another house the next year.

Camille is the son of the local postman, and the yellow man is a painter called Vincent in this story based on the life of Vincent van Gogh. The book includes several reproductions of Van Gogh's work, including Vase with 14 Sunflowers. Laurence Anholt is the author of The Forgotten Forest.

Discover the joy of growing things in this non-fiction nature picture book series from Axel Scheffler and the National Trust.

A Holocaust survivor's surprising and thought-provoking study of forgiveness, justice, compassion, and human responsibility, featuring contributions from the Dalai Lama, Harry Wu, Cynthia Ozick, Primo Levi, and more. You are a prisoner in a concentration camp. A dying Nazi soldier asks for your forgiveness. What would you do? While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to--and obtain absolution from--a Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing. But even years after the way had ended, he wondered: Had he done the right thing? What would you have done in his place? In this important book, fifty-three distinguished men and women respond to Wiesenthal's questions. They are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China and Tibet. Their responses, as varied as their experiences of the world, remind us that Wiesenthal's questions are not limited to events of the past.

First there is a sunflower. Seasons pass ... and soon there is a patch of sunflowers. Budding young gardeners will discover that what makes this happen is not magic - but is most definitely magical.