Maxwell the Monkey Barber


Cale Atkinson - 2016
    He excels at helping his fellow animals look shipshape and feel their best, no matter how unruly their locks. Whatever the coiffure quandary, Maxwell is your monkey. He tames Baboon’s curls, styles Lion’s mane, and trims Bear’s beard, exclaiming each time: “Your hair’s the best I’ve seen today!”All’s well until Elephant comes in, feeling sad because he has no hair. Can Maxwell help? Of course! After some careful thinking, he devises a solution to help even Elephant feel his best.Cale Atkinson’s bright, cartoon-like digital illustrations beckon readers into Maxwell’s world in this playful tale. Rhyming text, speech bubbles, and a refrain make this story a fun read-aloud accessible to early readers. Full of personality and style, Maxwell has a genuine charm and enthusiasm for helping others that kids will find immediately contagious.LEVELINGGrade Range: PreK–3Fountas & Pinnell: JReading Recovery: 17Lexile: AD 520LCOMMON COREL.1.1,1f,2,2a,2d,4,4a,5,5a,5dRF.1.1,2,3,3a,3b,3f,4,4a,4b,4cSL.1.1,1a,1b,1c,2,4,5,6W.1.1,3,5,6,8RL.1.1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10

A Fine, Fine School


Sharon Creech - 2001
    Keene called all the students and teachers together and said, "This is a fine, fine school! From now on, let's have school on Saturdays too." And then there was more.School all weekend. School on the holidays.School in the SUMMER!What was next . . .SCHOOL AT NIGHT?So it's up to Tillie to show her well-intentioned principal, Mr. Keene, that even though his fine, fine school is a wonderful place, it's not fine, fine to be there all the time.

How Are You Peeling?


Saxton Freymann - 1999
    And leaves you feeling great no matter what the answers are!"Who'd have dreamed that produce could be so expressive, so charming, so lively and so funny?...Freymann and...Elffers have created sweet and feisty little beings with feelings, passions, fears and an emotional range that is, well, organic."-The New York Times Book Review

Hewitt Anderson's Great Big Life


Jerdine Nolen - 1998
    This warmly humorous tale is “proof that, when it comes to heart, physical size isn’t the whole story” (Kirkus Reviews).Descended from a long line of giants, the J. Carver Worthington Andersons take their height very seriously indeed. You see, without exception all of the many J. Carver Worthington Andersons have been giants until now. And poor Hewitt—hidden in the floorboards, trapped in the flour vat, lost in the bedsheets—has his struggles being tiny. Oh, his parents worry: How will their son manage to live in a world of big things? Leave it to Hewitt to prove the power of being small. Inspired by the tale of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” the inimitable Jerdine Nolen tells an original story of bravery and the power of the individual. Kadir Nelson’s imaginative and loving illustrations create a world where smallness rules—a world that children will want to return to again and again.