By Jeff Brown
The boy who wakes up flattened to half an inch thick by a fallen bulletin board, and then finds out all the ridiculous things a flat child can do.
One morning Stanley Lambchop's parents hear him calling from under the big bulletin board that came off the wall in the night, and when they lift it up, there's Stanley, flat as a pancake but perfectly cheerful. Being flat turns out to be wonderful. He can slide under closed doors, get flown like a kite in the park, and when his family wants to visit friends in California, they simply fold him up, pop a few stamps on, and mail him in an envelope. He even helps the police catch a couple of art-gallery sneak-thieves by disguising himself as a painting on the wall. It's one silly idea followed cheerfully all the way through, in short chapters a brand-new reader can actually finish.
This is a first-rate hook when your child says they don't like books, because there's really only one idea to hold in your head, and it's a delicious one. The chapters are tiny, the pictures do a lot of the work, and every few pages Stanley does something new and absurd with being flat, so a newer or reluctant reader gets a fresh little reward constantly instead of waiting for a slow plot to build. Finishing it feels like a genuine win, and there are a dozen more Flat Stanley books waiting if they want another.