Elephant & Piggie Like Reading, Do you?

The author behind the Elephant and Piggie books and the Pigeon of driving a bus fame books, (Mo Willems) has created a beginning reader series, Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! Each one is illustrated by a different popular children’s illustrator. Each book is a book that Elephant and Piggie are reading and not them as the main characters. One of those books is The Itchy Book! With the text by Willems (in his signature style) and the illustrations by Leuyen Pham this new series keeps the high jinx flowing in each of the titles.

In The Itchy Book! we see our dinosaur friends having a tricky situation: they all have a very bad itch, but as they are all reminded, dinosaurs DO NOT scratch. And due to this most important Rule Number One, the humor ensues. You are introduced to the dinosaurs not by a name but by their species (pterodactyl, Brontosaurus and T-Rex, etc.). There is not a lot of action, and this might be a hard read-aloud due to the basic, simple text, but it would be perfect for the child just starting out reading. Pham’s illustrations are funny and bright and capture the light-heartedness of the text.

Other books in the series include: It’s Shoe Time! by Willems and Bryan Collier, The Cookie Fiasco illustrated by Dan Santat; We Are Growing! with Laurie Keller (Do Unto Otters fame) and The Good for Nothing Button! by Charise Meride Harper (the illustrator and author of the Just Grace series). Each one deals with some silly situation the characters have to figure out.