Chester's Way

Chester and Wilson had their own way of doing things, and they did everything together. When they cut their sandwiches, it was always diagonally. When they rode their bikes, they always used hand signals. If Chester was hungry, Wilson was too. They were two of a kind, and that's the way it was - until indomitable Lilly, who had her own way of doing things, moved into the neighborhood.

Chester and Wilson share the same exact way of doing things, until Lilly moves into the neighborhood and shows them that new ways can be just as good.

Chester and Wilson had their own way of doing things, and they did everything together. When they cut their sandwiches, it was always diagonally. When they rode their bikes, they always used hand signals. If Chester was hungry, Wilson was too. They were two of a kind, and that's the way it was - until indomitable Lilly, who had her own way of doing things, moved into the neighborhood.

Publishers Weekly

Chester's ways are fairly circumscribed: this young mouse has definite likes and dislikes, and there is no changing his mind. His friend Wilson is just like him; they're quite a pair. Then Lilly moves into the neighborhood. She speaks backwards (``YLLIL MA I''), travels only in disguise and carries a water pistol wherever she goes, ``just in case.'' She intimidates Chester and Wilson, until she terrorizes some bullies who are picking on the two friends. Suddenly, Lilly's ways don't look so bad, and the threesome becomes just as like-minded and inseparable as Chester and Wilson's former twosome. Henkes's vision of friendship captures the essence of the childlike; his mice live in a sunny, imaginative world mixed with secure routines and the safety of known factors. The story unwinds at a deliberate pace; every sentence is either downright funny or dense with playful, deadpan humor. The artist/author, as always, gently grants room for differences between people (the turnaround in A Weekend with Wendell , for example, and the reconciliation between Wedge and his stepfather in Two Under Par ). Behind each book is a wide-open heart, one readers can't help but respond to, that makes all of Henkes's booksand especially this oneof special value to children. Ages 4-up. (August)

With his lively illustrations and adorable menagerie of mice, Kevin Henkes brings compassion and a comic touch to such everyday childhood ordeals as starting school, being teased and getting lost.