PreS-Gr 1-Humorous short stories with playfully upbeat, cartoon illustrations. In the four episodes in the first book, the little lavender elephant dances in a polka-dotted tutu and crashes, gets a new coat and pops its buttons, eats all of the cookie batter and has none left to bake, and decorates her hat with flowers. In the second title, an African-American boy makes friends with a cat, learns how to ride a two-wheeler, struggles with squirrels in his bird feeder, and loses his lunch to a series of hungry animals. A simple line of text in large type unfolds in a plain color band along the bottom of each page. Straightforward, two- to six-word sentences with a controlled vocabulary faithfully reflect the action in the drawings. New readers will derive satisfaction as well as amusement from mastering these tales. Advice for adults to help brand-new readers appears in each book.-Mary Ann Carcich, Mattituck-Laurel Public Library, Mattituck, NY