Books like A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever
By Marla Frazee
For the kid who would rather build a fort indoors than hike a trail, this is a love letter to summer days that go pleasantly off script. Warm, funny, gently nostalgic — a slow, sunlit ramble through a kid's-eye version of summer.
Five short stories follow two hippo best friends through everyday mishaps and mix-ups, including one memorable picnic where George drags along Martha's bed instead of letting her sleep in.
A mouse named Chester has one way of doing everything, and his best friend Wilson happily matches him move for move — until a bold new neighbor named Lilly moves in with her own way of doing things entirely.
A boy declares Jeremy Ross his enemy the moment he moves in down the street, so Dad offers his secret weapon: Enemy Pie — but the recipe requires spending a whole day playing with the enemy first.
A picnic goes sideways when rain and stormy winds send an umbrella (and Mouse!) flying into a tree — one friend calls it good news, the other bad, all the way through.
A young bear named Lucy finds a boy in the woods and, against her mother's warning that children make terrible pets, brings him home to keep as her very own — naming him Squeaker.
A bird wakes up too grumpy to fly, eat, or play, so he stomps off on a walk instead — and one by one, Sheep, Rabbit, Raccoon, Beaver, and Fox tag along.
A girl named Emily Elizabeth introduces her enormous red dog, Clifford, sharing the everyday activities they enjoy together and the ways they look after one another.
An aardvark's excitement over his birthday party invitations turns into a crisis when he discovers his classmate Muffy scheduled her party the same day, splitting all their friends down the middle.
A bacon-loving cowboy and a knock-knock-joke-loving octopus strike up an odd-couple friendship, told through a handful of short, funny stories about their mismatched tastes and habits.
A crocodile and his bird friend travel to the United States to rescue a kidnapped cousin taken to an Exotic Animal Farm — and along the way, the bird himself gets captured.
A fish and his best friend, a tadpole, grow up together in a pond until the tadpole becomes a frog and hops off to explore dry land, leaving the fish desperate to follow.
A boy named Dennis expresses everything through mime — silent, expressive, entirely his own way — until loneliness gives way to friendship when he meets a girl named Joy.
