Stories of Two Best Friends

I am so in love with George and Martha. Droll and witty and touching, they're among my all-time favorite kids' books. Sean and Allie seem to be similarly entranced. For Christmas, then, I bought them a volume that contains all the George and Martha stories, 35 of them, to be exact.

In case you're interested, it takes about 40 minutes to read all the stories from beginning to end, give or take 200 or so interruptions along the lines of "Well, why did Martha not want George to read her diary?" and "Why did George say 'Have mercy!'?"

We've gone through the book once this morning and now Sean is eager to read all the stories again. Apparently I'm not as big a fan as I had thought -- I demurred. Instead I offered to read just "a few", as requested. I'm thrilled that they already have their favorites: "The one with the pea soup, Mommy!" and "The one with the scary movie!" Of course, Allie confounded me with her request: "The one where George goes to Martha's house!" When I explained that this description could apply to about half of the stories, she took the book from me and impatiently leafed through until she found the one she wanted: the one where George rollerskates to Martha's, falls and breaks his tooth, and in its place gets a gold one.

If you haven't experienced the George and Martha books for yourself, I highly recommend them. My personal favorite? The one one where George scares Martha and Martha serves her revenge cold.