A never-before-published， previously unfinished Mark Twain children’s story is brought to life by Caldecott Medal winners Philip Stead and Erin Stead. ? In a hotel in Paris one evening in 1879， Mark Twain sat with his young daughters， who begged their father for a story. After the girls chose a picture from a magazine to get started， Twain began telling them the tale of Johnny， a poor boy in possession of some magical seeds. Later， Twain would jot down some rough notes about the story， but the tale was left unfinished . . . until now. ? Plucked from the Mark Twain archive at the University of California at Berkeley， Twain’s notes now form the foundation of a fairy tale picked up over a century later. With only Twain’s fragmentary script and a story that stops partway as his guide， author Philip Stead has written a tale that imagines what might have been if Twain had fully realized this work： ? Johnny， forlorn and alone except for his pet chicken， meets a kind woman who gives him seeds that change his fortune， allowing him to speak with animals and sending him on a quest to rescue a stolen prince. In the face of a bullying tyrant king， Johnny and his animal frien...