In this retelling of an old folktale, an old woman named Esperanza (originally called Tia Miseria) gives her last pear to a beggar and is rewarded with the best pear crop she’s ever had—and the power to ensnare anyone she wants in her tree. When Señor Death comes for her, Esperanza tricks him into climbing her tree, where he becomes stuck, unable to come down and do his work. From that point on, no one dies. But when Esperanza learns that the end of death doesn’t mean the end of suffering, she agrees to let Señor Death down from her tree. The final work by legendary children’s author Luli Gray. An afterword by the publisher encourages children and adults to consider why the author may have changed the story the way she did.

- From the Publisher, The Pear Tree

- Publisher's Blog: Remembering Luli by

   her sister, Elizabeth Mcculloch

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promotional pdf

Ant & Grasshopper

Simon & Schuster, Guiliano Ferri,, illus.

Starred review, School Library Journal

A School Library Journal Book of the Day

An Amazon Book of the Month

An NAIBA Pick of the Lists

Simon & Schuster publisher page

Luli talks about Ant & Grasshopper with Eileen Heyes, listen here

Luli Gray came from a large family of readers, writers, and people who never shut up.

She lived in England, Bolivia, Argentina, France, Mexico, Israel; New York, Boston, and Los Angeles, and worked as a maid, busker, factory hand, fruit picker, receptionist, restaurant cook, actress, waitress, and food writer.

She lived rather quietly in Chapel Hill with a tuxedo cat and a covey of dust bunnies. She enjoyed cooking, reading, and writing illustrated comic verse for friends, family, and other victims. She died August 16, 2017.

Falcon and the Charles Street Witch is a sequel to the A.L.A. Notable, Falcon's Egg.

Timespinners, a fantasy of time travel set in contemporary New York and the Ice Age, was published in spring of 2003. Twins Fig and Allie Cadawaller-Newton discover the secrets of time-travel in New York's Museum of Natural History.

 

The final book in the series, Falcon and the Carousel of Time (2005), returns to the character of Falcon. Falcon just wants to be an ordinary girl, to forget about magic, but her Aunt Emily and new friend Allie know Falcon could never be ordinary.

Ant and Grasshopper (2011), a picture book illustrated by Guiliano Ferri, a lively and touching twist on Aesop's famous fable.