Slobodkina’s use of an adult protagonist empowers children one cap at a time. As he tries to reclaim his caps from the mischievous monkeys, the child-reader is one step ahead, seeing the solution to his problem before he does. The author highlights this through simple illustrations that make use of the same or similar scenes...

Concept book in disguise!

A little caterpillar eats too much, gets a tummy ache, then rights his eating habits and turns into a butterfly. The story itself is engaging, but it also teaches the days of the week, counting, one-to-one correspondence...

Am I the only parent who uses the "abridged" bedtime story? What I mean is, I skip parts of longer books. Even shorter books. Like Cat in the Hat - he only spends one page standing on the ball in my version. I just can't take more "cake on the ball on the rake, etc." I abridge quite a bit of Mike Mulligan, too, despite the clever and rhythmic text. But for my purpose here...

Such a sweet story!

Harry the dog doesn’t like baths so he runs off and gets dirtier and dirtier until he’s no longer a white dog with black spots, but a black dog with white spots. His own family doesn’t even recognize him until he races inside, up the stairs and jumps into, of all places...