Penny and Her Marble

This afternoon I got my hands on an ARC of Penny and Her Marble and I am delighted and cannot wait to add a real copy to my shelves in the new year. Kevin Henkes books are awesome and the Penny books are just plain fabulous. As very early chapter books I have yet to find anything just quite as excellent and the Penny books are excellent. Lyrical and full of a great moral lesson, Penny finds a marble and as a reader one must decide if it really is her marble for the keeps. Henkes tells a story that will get right at the conscience of an early reader and open discussion on theft and possession. This is a great example on keeping things truthful and I am delighted hat such books exist to share with my girls as they grow into readers.

We love Penny and Her Doll and I'm certain we will love any other Penny readers to come.

Thanks to HC for providing an ARC.
Typed on Kindle Fire.

scheduled: http://creativemadnessmama.com/blog/2013/02/15/penny-and-her-marble-by-kevin-henkes/

While out for a stroll with her doll, Penny spots a marble in her neighbor's yard. It is a shiny blue marble, and Penny instantly falls in love with it. Impulsively, Penny nabs the marble. And almost immediately, she is filled with regret and remorse and anguish. Should she have taken the marble? she asks herself. Has she done the wrong thing? Should she return it?

Kevin Henkes has done it again. He has dropped us right inside the mind and heart of a small child. He has bestowed on us a main character so genuine, so palpable, and so human that she might be playing right now in the house next door to us. In Penny we see a child who is all at once both self-seeking and generous, both gently naughty and deeply contrite, a child who, yes, might take something that isn't hers and yet who also has the courage to return something taken to its rightful owner. A charming little story with big ideas for small people, all told in a mere forty-eight pages.