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.

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.

Children join Ben and Nell on their adventures to visit their grandparents, a trip which many children have taken. Bell, their flamboyant and arrogant pet monkey, intrigues young readers when he misbehaves on the plane and with the ponies on the farm. The family’s adventures are built on the phonic sounds of similar words, slightly longer sentences, and hilarious dialogue, creating an enjoyable book for the advanced early reader.

An action-packed T-ball game leads Sam and his friends on a rollicking chase to catch a cute cat that runs away with Sam’s baseball cap. In this advanced early reader, children learn to recognize familiar words such as umpire on the brightly illustrated pages. The chase offers opportunities for parents to discuss positive ways to deal with an upset friend and to explain that pets usually aren’t misbehaving but think it’s a fun game when they grab something and run.