One Day I Went Rambling - Tapa dura

When Zane goes rambling, his friends call him crazy and refuse to play along. When he finds a shining star, it doesn't bother him when his friends try to tell him it's just a hubcap. Undaunted, Zane uses his finds to create a secret project that piques his friends' curiosity. After watching him ramble around the neighborhood, finding magic in the ordinary, his friends are eventually drawn into his imaginative game. Through the book's art, attentive readers will see that Zane is using his finds to create a pirate ship, and once his friends realize what he's up to, even the most skeptical realists join the fun and sail the afternoon away. Zane's imagination sees the cowpoke's lasso in a piece of vine, the pirate's golden ring in an old pop top, and many other treasures that have been stolen from today's children by electronic entertainment. Rambling enforces the joy of imaginative play.

Kelly Goldman Bennett writes fiction and nonfiction books for children. Her other books, including Not Norman, A Goldfish Story (Candlewick), Dad and Pop (Candlewick), Your Daddy Was Just Like You (Putnam), and Dance, Y'all, Dance (Bright Sky Press), celebrate families, dancing, friends, pets, and all that goes into being a kid. Books for older readers, coauthored as "Jill Max," take on taller subjects. These include Spider Spins a Story: Fourteen Legends from Native America and Strangers in Black, a Cambodian survival story. Honors for her published works include: Oklahoma Book Award Finalist for Spider Spins a Story; Texas Institute of Letters Best Children's Book of 2005 for Not Norman, A Goldfish Story. Not Norman also received a Children's Choice Award and Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Medal Award. Dad and Pop and Your Daddy Was Just Like You are USA Today's featured Father's Day books.