Hounds and hares are like cats and mice. At least, that’s the way it is in Great Bone, a little village beside the river. Harley Hare and Hugo Hound see each other at school every day, and they’re interested in the same things. But they never talk to each other because the Hare and Hound families can’t stand one another. When the annual Big Race takes place on the meadow, Harley and Hugo find themselves racing neck to neck, until a terrible thunderstorm breaks out. Hugo is terrified of the storm and the lightning. Harley panics when they discover they are lost. It turns out that between them, they know just what to do. And, working together, they not only save themselves, but become heroes of the day as well.
Problem solving
The No 1 Car Spotter
Oluwalase Babatunde Benson is Number 1. He’s the Number 1 car spotter in his African village. The Number 1 car spotter in the world! The start of an exciting new series about the irresistible Number 1, whose hobby is car spotting, but who is good at solving all sorts of problems for his village.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume IV, Issue 4
Inch by Inch
To keep from being eaten, an inchworm measures a robin’s tail, a flamingo’s neck, a toucan’s beak, a heron’s legs, and a nightingale’s song.
El Machinchar
The true story of a girl and her father who can’t match his clothes well. To help him, she makes him a “Matching chart” that tells him which colors go with which.
Ten Birds
Ten birds are trying to figure out how to get to the other side of the river. The bird they call “Brilliant” devises a pair of stilts. The bird they call “Highly Satisfactory” engineers a raft. One by one, nine resourceful birds make the crossing until a single bird is left behind–the one they call “Needs Improvement.” This bird’s solution proves surprising and absurdly simple. More than a counting book, Ten Birds is a witty story that highlights ingenuity, common sense and the inadequacies of labels.
Paper Bird
A drawing of a bird tries without success to learn to fly, until the artist completes his original design and makes flight possible for it.
Bubble in the Bathtub
Tiny dynamo Nilly and his friend Lisa, first introduced in Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder (S and S, 2010), return to save the day (and the doctor). At the end of their last outing, Doctor P. headed back to Paris to save the love of his life, Juliette Margarine, from having to marry evil Claude Cliché. A mysterious postcard from the past sends Nilly and Lisa on a mission to rescue him, both helped and hindered by the doctor’s crazy inventions, including a time-traveling bathtub and translating nose plugs. A whirlwind tour of French history ensues, including stops at the Moulin Rouge, the Tour de France, Waterloo, the Bastille, Monsieur Eiffel’s workroom, and Joan of Arc’s jail cell, with our heroes changing history right and left. Chasing them through time is Raspa, Proctor’s one-legged former assistant, inventor of time-travel soap, who makes the ultimate sacrifice to atone for past misdeeds.
Water Ghost
In China in the 1940s, ten-year-old Ying sells her handmade bamboo chicken fences to make money to attend a school camping trip, but no one understands why she instead uses her earnings to buy a dead hen from the grandmother of a drowned classmate.
Ottoline And The Yellow Cat
Meet Ottoline Brown and her best friend, Mr. Munroe. No puzzle is ever too tricky for the two of them to solve.
The Too Precious Child
Exposes the patterns and motives that lead parents to become too involved in their children’s lives, assesses the effects of their behavior on the family, and offers solutions to this problem