A Mouthful of Meatball

This collection includes seven stories written for children who are just beginning to read. The stories deal with everyday matters in the lives of kindergarteners and first graders: relationships with siblings and teachers, quarrels with other children in the neighborhood, and so on. All the stories, amusing and innocent, are written from a child’s perspective. In the first story, the brothers all want to eat chicken wings in hopes they also will grow wings and be able to fly. In another story about the way adults get children to eat, a little boy tucks his lunch meatball in his cheek. He does this because he wants to have his cake and eat it: not to swallow the meatball, which he doesn’t like, but to go to the zoo, his prize for eating it. Once the fun is over, he spits out the meatball. Messages about ecology and society are implied in the stories, but with a light touch, cloaked in humor and charm.