Cheerful colors in this spirited story build excitement on the pages when Tad’s dog leads a frantic chase to retrieve a cleaning rag and tracks mud in a van. Tad teaches responsibility to the readers when he offers to help the man clean his car and learns that training pets to obey is important to avoid similar situations. Children enjoy trying longer sentences that incorporate one-syllable words and more dialogue, and this delightful book opens the discussion for parents to teach how to handle conflict in a positive way.

Rick wears a funny hat to join Zag in a fast-paced baseball game. Zag pokes fun at Rick’s hat until he sees him catch the ball with his hat, then he wants one too. Fun illustrations and excellent word choices are perfect for children learning to sound out words and understand sentences.

Lush woodland scenes with beautiful birds, colorful wildlife, and sparkling blue water animate this advanced early reader. Rick and Jan return for a new adventure in the mountains. When they need to decide whether to ride down a big hill and over a big bump, children learn that it’s okay to do something different from their friends. Rick chooses one route and Jan another. Splashing their bikes through a large mud puddle is fun, but the responsible children stop to clean their bikes before going swimming and fishing in the cool mountain water. After Jan catches a large, shiny fish, and the siblings pick fresh red apples and brown nuts, they take the feast home for supper.

Magic tricks fascinate children. The cat, the dog, the rat, and their friend, the hen, return to watch the fox perform magic tricks in this amusing story. Brimming with similar sounding one and two-syllable words, this advanced early reader is the perfect book to begin mastering longer sentences and interesting dialogue. As the fox amazes the friends with his tricks on the brightly illustrated pages, early readers are excited to learn new words and turn the pages to read what happens next.