Title: The Secret Box

Author: Barbara Lehman

Illustrator: Barbara Lehman

Copyright date: 2011

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books

Summary: In The Secret Box some children discover a box hidden in the floorboards. When they open the box, they discover items from the past and a map. The children decide to follow the map and go on an adventure. Each time the box is hidden, the city changes and becomes more modern, but the children who find it still have lots of fun with the adventure no matter how much time passes.

Media for illustration: Watercolor, gouache, and ink

Perfect student: This book would be good for ELLs and students with limited literacy skills because it is a wordless picturebook.

Common Core State Standard: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.7 Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas. This standard is for first grade, but I believe there are similar standards in other elementary grades as well and probably even higher grades. This standard works well with this book because the illustrations are award-winning.