I read the first book in the Ava and Pip trilogy many years ago, when my kids were very young. Now that My daughter is 10 years old, I felt like it was time I revisit it, especially since there are two other books in the series that were not around when I reviewed the

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Lost Cat by C. Roger Madder (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) has gorgeous illustrations of a cat and the feet it encounters as it tries to find its owner after it’s lost during a move. I love how the pictures showed things from the cat’s perspective! Each of the different shoes he met gave him a

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Socks (1973) is not a Beverly Cleary book I ever discovered as a child, but I love it! It’s a simple story told from the perspective of a cat named Socks, beginning with his first day of true consciousness: the day he would be sold by the boy and girl who had taken care of

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Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin (Feiwel & Friends, October 2014) is chocked full of amazing characterization. Rose is a preteen struggling with OCD and difficulties fitting in because she is on the autism spectrum. But Rose is not stupid, and her quick wit and clever ways of dealing with her frustrating life One of

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Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton (Candlewick, 2012) is a book I can’t quite bring myself to like, and yet my son loves it! Part of my dislike relates to the computer-rendered modern images: the bright orange and red illustrations remind me of computer drawings I attempted years ago and the typeface is also rather

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Homer by Elisha Cooper (Greenwillow, 2012) celebrates the peace that comes from the familiar, from home, by focusing on a dog who stays on his porch all day. Other dogs want Homer to come race with them, the children invite him to race on the beach with them, but Homer stays where he is and watches.

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One Cool Friend by Toni Buzzeo, illustrated by David Small (Dial Books, 2012) features a very proper boy who adopts a very proper-looking kind of animal, a penguin. With his father always distracted inside of a book or newspaper, Elliot seems to be going about it without his father understanding. For example, Elliot very politely takes

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Me Want Pet! by Tammi Sauer and illustrated by Bob Shea (Simon and Schuster, 2012) is the story of a cave boy who wants a pet. He tries a wooly mammoth, a saber-toothed tiger, and a dodo bird, and none of them seems right. How will he get a pet?! The humor is obvious, given the

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