Arnold Lobel's two friends have outlasted almost everything published alongside them, and this is the volume that follows them through a whole year. Sledding down a hill in winter with more speed than either of them wanted. Waiting for spring. Eating ice cream on a hot afternoon and losing most of it. Five short stories, one per season and a Christmas Eve, each built around the small everyday kindnesses that make the pair impossible to forget.

It is an I Can Read Level 2 title, which is the level for children who read on their own but still want an adult nearby. Longer sentences, real language play, and a story worth the effort of decoding it.

Lobel's Frog and Toad books have taken a Newbery Honor and a Caldecott Honor between them. Sixty-four pages, and a book most parents are quietly delighted to reread.

Ready to leave the reading levels behind? My Weirdest School #5 is a 112-page chapter book with short chapters and Jim Paillot's cartoons breaking up the text, which HarperCollins grades for ages 6 to 10.