Chicken, Pig, Cow, And The Purple Problem

Who ever heard of a purple cow?How come Cow’s spots are purple when every other cow’s are gray or brown? Fed up with being different, Cow sets out on a quest to change her spots.Thanks to a gravelly walkway, she soon finds lots of gray to cover the purple, and a squirrel in a tree provides plenty of brown by showering Cow with seeds. But when she arrives back home all big and bunchy and lumpy, Chicken and Pig hardly recognize her. When they finally realize it is Cow, they reassure her that she is their friend — purple spots and all.The adorable Chicken, Pig, Cow and Dog are back, and they continue to capture the hearts of young readers. The winning combination of simple text, expressive illustrations and lots of humor makes this a perfect choice for toddlers and beginning readers.

Willow’s Whispers

Willow’s voice, soft and shy as a secret, goes unheard by everyone at school and causes her to no end of troubles. (Having to drink orange juice at snack time when she has asked to nicely for apple is just one disappointment.) After a night of wishing, thinking and planning for a way to make louder words, Willow wakes the next morning with the perfect idea: a magic microphone! But although she fashions if from the sturdiest recyclables, her beglittered invention doesn’t last the school day. Will Willow find another way to make herself heard?

Edgar Potato

If you knew you were to read a story of a Prince Edward Island potato that had grown too big, you would be able to predict the rest: his peer potatoes would give him a hard time, right? Right. But in the end he would win out, right? Right again, in fact the prize for the Potato Beauty Contest. There is not too much to be put in the middle of such predictability, but Don Oickle has made a good effort. Because Edgar Potato is so near the surface, he gets to see and experience much of the lovely Prince Edward Island scenery. This makes up in part for the insults he receives from his smaller neighbour potatoes. He will not, they jeer, be able to become a wonderful baked or French fried or instant mashed potato. His fate will be to be made into pig food. After winning his beauty prize, Edgar’s last comment is “Maybe being bigger than all the others isn’t so bad after all!

Courage In The Storm

She urged the horse on with a jerk at the reins. Judy went on a few steps and stopped again. The object stretched right across her path. It was close and clear now, and Greta gasped. Her very heart seemed to stop beating. For there, like a ghost risen out of the ice, lay a ship. A ship, of all things! A big schooner with three tall masts, all crusted with snow. What was it doing here? Slowly her mind filled with awful suspicion. She tried to put it aside, but it came back. At last she faced the truth.

The little mare had been lost all this time. Instead of crossing the ice, they had been wandering down the river, towards the open sea.