Mary and Marcus The Crazy Dance and Other Stories

Ursula Dubosarsky

Andrew Joyner

ABC Books, 2022

240pp., pbk., RRP $A16.99

9780733339844

Mary is the happiest panda in the world.  She loves to sing and dance and play the ukulele. and sometimes she says OINK for no reason at all.
But sometimes things get out of hand!
Lucky she has her best friend, Marcus the snake,  who does not sing or dance or play the ukulele or say OINK to help her out.

This is a collection of five zany stories perfect for the young reader transitioning to reading “chapter books”.  It uses all the supports that they need including large fonts, short sentences and complete stories as well as lots and lots of quirky  illustrations so the pages do not look overwhelming,  The characters are introduced to the reader at the beginning so the each story focuses purely on its plot and by using the same characters in each story, the reader carries that knowledge over to the next episode, learning to build on their understanding of them as they read further, all the while celebrating the friendship between these two completely different and unlikely  mates.  

A solid stepping stone.