Published by Candlewick

Summary:  A turtle loves to stand in his favorite spot.  Meanwhile, the reader sees that a big rock is falling from the sky.  An armadillo joins the turtle, but gets a bad feeling, and finds another spot to stand.  There’s a series of miscommunications as the rock gets closer and the turtle goes back and forth between the two spots.  Story 1 ends with the rock landing; four more stories involving the turtle, the armadillo, the rock, and, occasionally, a snake, follow.  All stories are told with dialog between the turtle and the armadillo, each one in a different font to make them easily distinguishable.  96 pages; ages 4-9.

Pros:  Fans of Jon Klassen’s “Hat” series are going to be delighted with this new entry.  I was laughing aloud, particularly at the first story.  Klassen is the master of simple facial expressions…you just know what those animals are thinking.  I’ve used his other stories for readers’ theater for first graders, and this book will definitely lend itself to that as well.

Cons:  96 pages makes for a long read-aloud.