The second title in the acclaimed easy reader series, now with a new look!

Iris is devastated when she has to miss her first school play when she is sick.

When best friends Iris and Walter go on a field trip to an aquarium, Walter gets lost and a worried Iris helps Miss Cherry look for him.

Iris thought that having a baby sister would be just like playing with a doll. But newborn Baby Rose is a crabby cake. She fusses and cries and wails so much that Iris decides she needs a new baby sister. But with a little help from her family and her best friend, Walter--and with the passage of time--Iris discovers that being a big sister can be fun . . . some of the time!

In the vein of Eloise and Marley, here's an adorable tale of two well-intentioned rule breakers who show each other how friends deserve to be treated Bella knows her family's rules by heart, but she much prefers her own: Candy for breakfast, no hair-washing, and no such thing as bedtime. And then . . . Bella the wild child gets a new pet! At first, Bella and Puppy are the very best of friends. But when it turns out that Puppy doesn't like the family rules either (including the rule not to gnaw off Bella's teddy bear's arm), well...it's time for a little puppy training. And Bella might just learn a thing or two herself!

Who of us cannot remember the pain and humiliation of being rejected by our classmates? However thick-skinned or immune to such assaults we may become as adults, the memory of those early exclusions is as palpable to each of us today as it is common to human experience. We remember the uncertainty of separating from our home and entering school as strangers and, more than the relief of making friends, we recall the cruel moments of our own isolation as well as those children we knew were destined to remain strangers. In this book Vivian Paley employs a unique strategy to probe the moral dimensions of the classroom. She departs from her previous work by extending her analysis to children through the fifth grade, all the while weaving remarkable fairy tale into her narrative description. Paley introduces a new rule—“You can’t say you can’t play”—to her kindergarten classroom and solicits the opinions of older children regarding the fairness of such a rule. We hear from those who are rejected as well as those who do the rejecting. One child, objecting to the rule, says, “It will be fairer, but how are we going to have any fun?” Another child defends the principle of classroom bosses as a more benign way of excluding the unwanted. In a brilliant twist, Paley mixes fantasy and reality, and introduces a new voice into the debate: Magpie, a magical bird, who brings lonely people to a place where a full share of the sun is rightfully theirs. Myth and morality begin to proclaim the same message and the schoolhouse will be the crucible in which the new order is tried. A struggle ensues and even the Magpie stories cannot avoid the scrutiny of this merciless pack of social philosophers who will not be easily caught in a morality tale. You Can’t Say You Can’t Play speaks to some of our most deeply held beliefs. Is exclusivity part of human nature? Can we legislate fairness and still nurture creativity and individuality? Can children be freed from the habit of rejection? These are some of the questions. The answers are to be found in the words of Paley’s schoolchildren and in the wisdom of their teacher who respectfully listens to them.

In three separate episodes Fox wants to play with his friends, but duty, in one form or another, always interferes.