Toot & Puddle by Holly Hobbie; Reflection by Averi Henderson

The children’s book, "Toot & Puddle", is a sparkling story of the life of two friends who are actually pigs! This fantasy story is the first of several adventures written by Holly Hobbie, which desribes the strong friendship between Toot and Puddle. While living in Woodcock Pocket together, Toot, decides one day to take off to see the world and sends a postcard every month to this best pal, Puddle. The postcards provide a little snapshot into the adventures of Toot and the illustrations in the story are vivid and quite fascinating. While Toot is exploring all the continents, Puddle is at home, enjoying “mud season” and other Woodcock Pocket traditions but begins to really miss Toot. He tries to occupy himself by pretending that he is actually in Paris like Toot, painting and wearing a beret. Finally, eleven months later, Puddle learns that Toot is finally returning home. They are so excited to be reunited and they celebrate Toot's return in their little cabin together.

This sweet story of two best friends who each have fantastic adventures far away and right at home is a great springboard for other activities in the classroom. For younger students, they could each write a sentence, introducing their best friend, drawing a picture of them and writing what they like the most about their friend. This book is a clear example of how important friendships are and I could discuss how to be a good and trustworthy friend. For creative journal writing entry, students could write about their favorite adventure/vacation/trip away from home and how what they enjoyed the most about their experience but also what they missed about home while they were away. With a social studies focus for possibly third graders, I could discuss each country/destination that Toot explored and students could divide into groups and find out quick facts about each destination: Egypt, Solomon Islands, India, Mount Blanc, Spain, Antarctica, France, Italy. A creative writing activity would be for students to respond to Toot’s postcards as the character Puddle and ask questions about his travels. This book was a great introduction to the collection of Toot & Puddle series and I’m sure that once students hear about all of the adventures, they will be wanting to hear more about the friendship between these precious pigs.