Great Books for Beginning Readers In this contemporary classic,
veteran children's author Viorst introduces us to Alexander, a
kid with an unruly crop of hair, who gets out of bed to face a
day that seems to grow increasingly worse with each passing
minute. Elephants are gray. Pigs are pink. Tigers have black and
orange stripes. It seems that every animal has its own
distinctive color except the chameleon. And that makes the
little chameleon hero of this picture book very sad. Every time
he moves, he changes color! In this practically wordless bedtime
story, a weary zoo keeper bids good night to his charges and
then goes home to bed. He doesn't notice, however, that clever
Gorilla has pickpocketed his keys and is letting the animals out
of their cages, one by one. Children count all the way to ten
with simple rhymes and brightly colored objects. By the author
of the Caldecott Honor Books Freight Train and Truck.