2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) Silver Medal Winner–Best Children’s Illustrated E-book

Gertrude the goat and her best friend Toby the tortoise are adventurers. No sitting around on the boring farm for them! They love to explore, and every Friday they sneak off the farm for some extra fun. One Friday, Gertrude and Toby decide to visit the local candy store in town. They discover yummy goodies and treats, but soon find that the treats are not free!? Uh oh! The market owner grabs Toby. He demands money for the candy that Gertrude and Toby have taken by mistake. Gertrude must find a way to save her friend and get back home before Farmer Sam returns.

Book 1 in the Gertrude and Toby fairy tale adventure book series

From the Publisher:

Gertrude and Toby’s Friday Adventure is an exciting adventure story for children who are transitioning from beginning readers to chapter books. This is the perfect book for the child who has been tasked with the usual 30-minutes-per-night reading homework. From the standpoint of reading progression, this title fills a specific niche that represents a gap in the children’s book market–longer illustrated children’s books that are more complex and challenging than typical picture books.

Gertrude and Toby’s Friday Adventure incorporates many traditional fairy-tale characters that will be immediately recognizable to most young readers. These characters include Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White’s evil stepmother, Jack (from Jack and the Beanstalk), the Gingerbread Man, and a frog princess. The presence of these fairy-tale characters adds familiarity for young readers and keeps alive the old tales (e.g., those by the Brothers Grimm) that we have all come to know and love.

The second and third books in the series, Gertrude and Toby Save the Gingerbread Man and Gertrude and Toby Meet the Wolf, follow the same approach of adapting fairy-tale tropes using fairy-tale characters in a contemporary setting. These modern stories have more complex plots and wording than those of standard picture books, but without the daunting word count of typical beginning chapter books.

We hope you love Gertrude and Toby and their series of adventure books as much as we do. Happy reading!