By Mo Willems
Gerald has a delicious ice cream cone, and he can't decide whether to share it with Piggie until the choice gets made for him.
Gerald gets an ice cream cone, and it's perfect. Then he thinks of Piggie, his best friend, and wonders whether he should share. That's where he gets stuck. Would she even want this flavor? What if she wants some and he's already licked it down to nothing? What if she doesn't want any at all? He stands there working through every branch of it while the cone drips down his arm and slowly turns to soup. By the time he settles it — yes, he'll share — there's a puddle where the ice cream used to be. Then Piggie strolls up with a cone of her own and hands half to Gerald, no fuss, no debate.
Sharing is a miserable thing to lecture a child about, and Willems doesn't. He just lets Gerald think himself right past the moment, and the ice cream pays for it. The joke does the work a lecture can't. For a child who's starting to read on their own, this is close to ideal: huge type, two friends who only ever talk, speech bubbles that pull the eye along, and a genuine laugh at the end. Finishing it feels like finishing a whole book, because it is one.