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.

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.

Zig, Ken, Jill, and Zig their pet monkey, are off for a fabulous family mountain hike. As usual, Zig, creates mayhem trying to make friends with a group of skunks and tries to jump on the back of a large deer for a ride, but he redeems himself when he saves Jill from a big bug. The exceptionally well-illustrated facial expressions of these fanciful characters and other wildlife in this adventurous tale provides an excellent opportunity for parents to discuss the joy of family time as their early readers master more advanced reading skills.