Tiny & Hercules by Amy Schwartz

PreK-2. Tiny, an elephant, and Hercules, a mouse, are best friends. They share many adventures in Schwartz's picture book-sized short story collection. In the first story, Hercules teaches Tiny to ice skate with a humorous result. In the second story, Tiny helps Hercules find inspiration for his artistic masterpiece. In the third story, the friends set up a lemonade stand, but soon find themselves with a bunch of unhappy customers. In the fourth story, the friends throw a birthday party for Hercules' Uncle Roy who is turning 103 and has a little trouble blowing out all the candles on his cake! In the fifth story, Tiny and Hercules knit each other sweaters.

These stories are fun whether read one at a time or all in one sitting!

Ms. Hannah is Bananas! by Dan Gutman, illustrated by Jim Paillot

Gr. 1-3. Ms. Hannah, the art teacher, is completely bananas, at least in A.J.'s opinion, that is! She wears a dress made of recycled pot holders and she doesn't believe in garbage. She thinks every last piece of trash can be recycled to become beautiful art and she proves this when she adds A.J.'s tissue to her ball of paint-speckled newspaper! Throughout the story, A.J. struggles with his negative feelings toward art and a few of his fellow classmates, but in the end he finds a unique way of combining kinetic and performance art with friendship to create an unforgetable sculpture! A humorous, short chapter book with illustrations, kids are sure to become fast fans of the My Weird School series and all its crazy teachers!