An Early American Christmas by Tomie de Paola

A great story of tradition and customs to introduce children to the origins of decorating the tree, making cookies and other fun things during hte holiday season.  The author has a great website as well.
http://www.tomie.com/

His books about Strega Nona are not to be missed.   She is a beloved character that appears in many of his stories.

Twenty-Odd Ducks:Why, Every Punctuation Mark Counts! by Lynne Truss

Why, every punctuation mark counts!   

Commas and apostrophes aren’t the only punctuation marks that can cause big trouble if they’re put in the wrong place. Now, Truss and Timmons put hyphens, parentheses, quotation marks, periods, and more in the spotlight, showing how which marks you choose and where you put them can cause hilarious mix-ups.

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/punctuation/printable/60121.html

The Fly on the Ceiling by Julie Glass

Recognized as the father of analytic geometry, René Descartes was a French mathematician and philosopher. Kids will love this funny and very accessible tale - based on one of math's greatest myths - about the man who popularized the Cartesion system of coordinates.
Here is a lesson to introduce and work with kids on a system of coordinates - http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=11237  Here is some background on Descartes - http://mathforum.org/cgraph/history/fly.html