Lisa in the Jungle (Gaspard and Lisa Books)
Lisa and Gaspard--the canine Curious Georges of Anne Gutman and Georg Hallensleben's lovely series--travel around the world getting into all kinds of scrapes. Or do they? InLisa in the Jungle, Lisa doesn't really travel to the jungle. She makes the whole story up because she's jealous of her friend Gaspard who got to go sailing while she stayed home and swam at the community pool all summer. But what a story it is! Her uncle Paul picks her up in a private plane to take her to his tree house, which is guarded, of course, by two gigantic gorillas. He has an anteater instead of a vacuum cleaner and a parrot for an alarm clock. Hallensleben's gorgeous, color-saturated paintings depict Lisa's action-packed "jungle adventure," complete with elephant-riding and panther brushing. Fortunately, class resumes just as Lisa's classmate asks her how she managed to be in the jungle and in the community pool at the same time... (Ages 4 to 8)--Karin Snelson