Favorite Series: Tugg and Teeny

Tugg and Teeny: Book One (I Am a Reader)
by J. Patrick Lewis
illustrated by Christopher Denise
Sleeping Bear Press, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

Yes, it's probably cheating to love a series when there's only one book out so far. But I'm willing to stick my neck out for Tugg and Teeny.

There are three short stories in this book, and they are all art-themed. In the first story, Teeny wants to become a musician. Tugg didn't buy her expensive lessons, he made sure she discovered a stick with holes in it, encouraged her to blow in it to see what happened, and then waited patiently as "her squeaks turned into peeps, and the peeps turned into tweets and toodles." Tugg is just as patient when Teeny wants to become an artist (Violet the Warthog helps out with this venture), and when Teeny wants to be a poet.

Why I love this series:
1. Tugg and Teeny are a great pair of characters. Elephant and Piggie great. Frog and Toad great. Henry and Mudge great.
2. They call each other "Monkeyface" and "Tuggboat."
3. The illustrations.


This post is the first in a SERIES of Wednesday posts about new/recent books in some of my favorite series.

Why I love series books:
1. I fall in love with characters when I read, and with a series, I get to revisit them in book after book.
2. I appreciate the way an author can keep enough things the same and at the same time, change just enough in each successive book in a series to keep me reading.
3. Other people collect baseball cards or beanie babies. I read all the books in a series as a readerly way of collecting.