We're always looking for add-on props to enliven train play. Action figures can climb up the side of this Adventure Tunnel with a lift up walking bridge on top. Figures can slide down one side or use the stone steps on the other side. Meanwhile, the train can go right under them. However, there are no figures in the package. 3 & up.

Age: Preschool. Award Year: 2013.

Great literature it's not, but it is an entertaining book of one liners by a dad ( like mine) who always made corny jokes. For example, "Whenever I say, "I’m hungry," Dad says, "Hello, Hungry. Pleased to meet you."  As the young narrator tells us again and again...his dad thinks he's funny and in the end,we think kids will agree with that dad. Good for some silly giggling together. Some of the jokes will go over the heads of preschoolers. 5 & up

Age: Early School Years. Award Year: 2013.

Tiptoe Joe has a surprise. With his happy smile, a charming love of a bear in red tie-up sneakers, shares his excitement as he invites all the animals of the forest to come see his secret! It's a short, sweet, and lively read-aloud with a repetitive refrain paired with the sounds animals make when they follow Joe. Suspense builds as the crowd grows and they reach Tiptoe's home where his wife holds their little secrets in her arms. 2 ½ & up.

Age: Toddlers, Preschool. Award Year: 2013.

A young science book starring two puffins that get separated in a storm. A friendly whale tries to help Peter find Paul based on Peter’s short descriptions of his friend. When he says his friend is black and white the whale takes him to the penquins. When he says Paul is noisy he takes him to a flock of parrots. In searching for Paul we get to see a nice variety of birds until at last Paul and Peter have their happy reunion. A small story with lovely illustrations for young listeners. 3 & up.

Age: Preschool. Award Year: 2013. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Designed for early grades, this beautifully illustrated biography of Nelson Mandela touches on the major events in his life from being sent away from home at an early age to his election as President of South Africa. It is not so much a warm fuzzy storybook as an overview that will explain with beautiful art why he remains an historic iconic figure who will not soon be forgotten. They say 4-8. We think this is more like a book for 7 & up.

Age: Early School Years. Award Year: 2013. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Hard to imagine how a garden slug would aspire to play baseball and, of course, to be a star slugger. Just the idea of all this is silly, but it holds together as an entertaining yarn that kids who aspire to play baseball will relate to. In this season of baseball books, here's one for the youngest player.  5 & up.

Age: Early School Years. Award Year: 2013. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Newest of the innovative augmented reality puzzles, Times Square comes to life with a 360 degree animated scene or for geographers, check out the new amazing World Map Puzzle with a quiz game built into the fun. Like the original 2012 Platinum winners, once again, technology meets the jigsaw puzzle and wow! Put these1,000 piece puzzles together and then use an iPhone or iPad to see your puzzle come to life! You get a free app download to activate the amazing video that asks you to find the image on your puzzle of the active animal or object moving on your screen. Of course, doing a 1,000 piece puzzle makes a great cooperative project for the whole family to do. Activity idea: Put the pieces on a table in a room the family uses and display the box cover as an invitation for 'getting it together' when anyone in the family has some free time. Once these big puzzles are done the whole family can enjoy this new dimension by clicking on an iPhone or iPad. A fun novelty for older kids and their parents. Still great, the original four puzzles: Underwater, Animals in Africa, Paris, and Norway. 

Age: Tweens, Teens, Adult. Award Year: 2013. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Although he is long gone, Babe Ruth's name lives on as a legend to all who know anything about baseball greats. Unlike so may baseball books that center on a singular event, in this child-sized biography the author manages to tell about Babe's early years when he got into so much trouble as a truant that his own father helped send him away to a reform school. Inside the walls of Saint Mary's George Ruth found a mentor and found himself. The story has a nice roundness as the Babe never forgets Brother Matthias, who teaches him the game and the school that nurtured him. As always, Matt Tavares' illustrations capture the time and place and even the Babe's memorable face. A keeper! 7 & up.

Age: Early School Years, Later School Years. Award Year: 2013. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Somehow variations on the Three Little Pigs keep coming and in the hands of Mark Teague, both the telling and the showing make for a very merry romp. Here a somewhat bad wolf goes through his usual paces at the usual straw and stick places. But when he gets to the brick house you are in for a surprise. It should be no surprise that the smart pig with the bow on her head is the one who is clever enough to build her house of bricks. Like so many of her gender she is able to predict outcomes. But, here's the spoiler alert: There is no chimney scene and all's well that ends well. It's easy to imagine what fun it could be hamming it up (oops, couldn't resist) as you share this fractured tale. 4-7

Age: Preschool, Early School Years. Award Year: 2013. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

The chase is on, Cowpoke Clyde has a dirty dawg who needs a bath. In this merry romp dawg keeps getting the best of Clyde and the other animals on the ranch. A fun yarn told in verse that makes for an amusing read-a-loud. 4-8

Age: Preschool, Early School Years. Award Year: 2013. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.