Okay, so summer may have officially ended this past weekend, and I already kissed my Summer Fridays goodbye for yet another year. But I won’t be able to say farewell to the season until I rave about this hilarious debut picture book from printmaker Greg Pizzoli. The Watermelon Seed tells the seemingly straightforward account of a young crocodile who accidentally swallows a seed while devouring his favorite snack: watermelon. Being the curious and imaginative young tike he is—like much of the book’s intended audience—the croc immediately begins to worry about what’s going to happen to him. In the end, his fears are alleviated by an unexpected solution which most young readers will be all too familiar with.

Parents who have grown accustomed to chants of “More! More!” from their young ones will love Pizzoli’s story which deliciously tackles the notion of “too much of a good thing.” The Watermelon Seed also wonderfully captures how unbound a child’s imagination can be. Kids learn that seeds turn into flowers and trees, so it’s only natural for them to speculate about seeds growing other places—like their stomach. Pizzoli’s croc imagination runs wild with the idea, even wondering if he’ll wind up in a fruit salad!

Featuring a wide-eyed and all-too-lovable crocodile, a limited color palette of green, pink and black, and a punchy design, The Watermelon Seed is also a feast for the eyes which children are bound to love. This deceptively simple story of a crocodile and his favorite snack is a modern classic and I look forward to seeing more of the little green guy.

In case you missed it last year: pick up two-time Caldecott Honor medalist Marla Frazee’s latest picture book, Boot & Shoe, for a story that will warm your heart as the weather cools. Boot and Shoe, two dogs from the same litter, are inseparable—except that Boot is a back porch kind of dog, and Shoe is a front porch kind of dog. They’re content sitting on their respective porches until, one day, a troublesome squirrel gets “all up in their business.” Boot and Shoe end up on the wrong porches after a spirited squirrel chase. Distressed, each dog waits through the long, lonely night for his brother, not knowing he’s on the other side of the house. Their joyful reunion takes place as the sun rises: Boot and Shoe serendipitously meet at—where else?—their favorite tree to pee on.

I won’t lie—this book made me cry. But it also made me laugh at all the right moments, and the happy ending is so satisfying in its simplicity. Marla Frazee is a master of both picture book text and illustration; in 32 pages, she manages to strike a number of emotional notes and achieve a perfect pace for the story. The beauty of her pencil-and-gouache drawings is in the details: the dogs’ paws, their one distinguishing characteristic; the hilarious, intricate squirrel chase spread; the changing texture and color of the darkening night as Boot and Shoe wait (and wait, and wait). If Boot & Shoe has a take-home message, it’s about friendship and loyalty, and who better to show us those values than a pair of adorable dogs?

As the exquisite cover indicates, there is something very special about Ursula Dubosarsky’s The Golden Day. It’s an elegant little novel, gorgeous in its depiction of aging and loss of innocence. The year is 1967, and 11 Australian schoolgirls (Cubby, Icara, Martine, Bethany, Georgina, Cynthia, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, and silent Deirdre) are taken on a field trip to a nearby garden to “think about death”. But idealistic Miss Renshaw disappears on the field trip, and, mystified, the girls return to school without her, bound to her promise to keep everything a secret. What happened to Miss Renshaw? And who can they tell?

The girls’ communal silence in the face of increasingly desperate adults is bewitching; their rationale both selfish – to avoid trouble – and steadfast – the aforementioned promise always on their minds. Told mainly from Cubby’s perspective, Dubosarsky captures the spirit of all eleven girls and makes the simplest observations both poetic and terrifying. If you’re wanting for quality literature in your life, read this now.

This may seem like an obvious choice but, with the movie coming out in November, I just re-read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card and could not put it down. The military science fiction novel, which was originally published in 1985, is beyond ahead of its time—not only in the technology with which the students engage, but with the science fiction elements and tropes that have now become standard (not boring) in contemporary novels. And while the violence is often gratuitous and it’s impossible (read: impossible) to believe that the main characters are between the ages of 6-12, Ender’s Game is a rollercoaster and a page turner, a must-read for any true science fiction fan. I’m most interested to see how the upcoming film represents the adaption of a novel so ahead of its time, and if the story will be revised again (Card revised the book in 1991 and spoke of revising it again) to reflect the current political climate. We will see in November!