The Cookie Fiasco (Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! #1)

In the end it’s a morality tale that may not be worth raiding the cookie jar for.

K-Gr 2--In this book within a book, readers are greeted by Elephant and Piggie, who are ready to share "some of their favorite books" with readers. Santat tackles the subject of division in a way that young kids will relate to--figuring out how to split up cookies fairly. The characters include a nervous purple hippo, a crocodile, a squirrel with pigtails, and a blue squirrel with glasses. They have a problem. There are four of them and only three cookies. How will they divide them up equally? Maybe the two squirrels should share one. Hippo suggests they share by size, but the crocodile protests, "WAIT! You are HUGE! You would get all the cookies!" Finally, a happy accident presents the solution. Those looking for "Elephant & Piggie" read-alikes will not be disappointed. The story is similarly told entirely in speech bubbles. The emotions of the characters are effectively conveyed through these speech bubbles, which change in size to express excitement and frustration, and the comic-style illustrations, which add dramatic appeal and humor. The language is more complex than most beginning reader texts, but kids won't mind. VERDICT With fun new characters and cameo appearances by Elephant and Piggie, this title is sure to be a hit with beginning readers. Libraries should be prepared for this one to fly off the shelves.--Kimberly Tolson, Medfield Public Library, MA

Three cookies + four friends = a big problem in Caldecott Medalist Santat's (The Adventures of Beekle) entertaining contribution to the new Elephant & Piggie Like Reading! series of beginning readers. "Hey, guys! Cookie time!" booms an enormous purple hippo, setting in motion a real-time story problem when his friends, a crocodile and a pair of squirrels, realize that there aren't enough cookies to go around. As the animals argue, Hippo starts nervously breaking the cookies into pieces, ushering in a fresh round of outrage ("Hippo! What are you doing?" screams one of the squirrels in shocked disbelief) but also leading to a fractions-based solution that ensures that everyone gets his or her fair share of chocolate chip goodness. Angular speech balloons and all-caps exclamations work neatly with Santat's ever-energetic artwork to amplify the fraught emotions at play; in a nifty visual touch, the characters' imagined solutions to their dilemma are pictured using sculpted figurines that appear in thought bubbles. Creating an introduction to the concepts of factors, fractions--and sharing--that's this much fun isn't easy, but Santat is more than up to the task. Ages 6-8. (Sept.)