Thirteen-year-old Travis has a secret: he can’t read. But a shrewd teacher and a sassy girl are about to change everything in this witty and deeply moving novel.

Travis is missing his old home in the country, and he’s missing his old hound, Rosco. Now there’s just the cramped place he shares with his well-meaning but alcoholic grandpa, a new school, and the dreaded routine of passing when he’s called on to read out loud. But that’s before Travis meets Mr. McQueen, who doesn’t take “pass” for an answer–a rare teacher whose savvy persistence has Travis slowly unlocking a book on the natural world. And it’s before Travis is noticed by Velveeta, a girl whose wry banter and colorful scarves belie some hard secrets of her own. With sympathy, humor, and disarming honesty, Pat Schmatz brings to life a cast of utterly believable characters–and captures the moments of trust and connection that make all the difference.

Can a cow whistle a happy tune? No! But they sure have a lovely smile.

In this light-hearted book, learn just how much cows like to chew, even without top teeth. They graze all day, then rest, and chew some more. Enjoy hearing your child shout out the answers to silly questions like “Does a cow drink through a straw?” This call and response format is a time-tested method for keeping kids engaged and interacting, instead of just chewing on the pages.

Cows Have No Top Teeth is part of the Awesome Animals series.

Awesome Animals SeriesAwesome Animals is a children’s non-fiction series. It explores the animal kingdom to gently introduce our little ones to body diversity. Each book features an animal which is missing something that we’re taught to expect should be there. But these animals don’t just thrive despite that absence, they thrive because of it.

The Awesome Animals series uses a dyslexia-friendly type-face.

With dyslexia, we often focus on the challenges – difficulty reading. But thanks to the way the dyslexic brain is built, people with dyslexia are often creative, intuitive and highly successful. In other words, those people aren’t thriving despite their dyslexic brain, they are thriving because of it.