Wiggle and Waggle
Caroline Arnold, author
Caroline Arnold grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota and spent her summers at a small camp in northern Wisconsin. It was there that she developed her love of animals and the outdoors, delighting in catching sight of deer leaping through the underbrush or a porcupine scrambling up a pine tree.
Read more about Caroline.
Mary Peterson, author/illustrator
Mary Peterson has illustrated many books for children, including Ocean Soup, Wiggle and Waggle, No Time to Nap, and Cat on Wheels. Mary lives in Los Angeles, California.
Read more about Mary.
- Earlychildhood News Director's Choice Award
- Bank Street College of Education's Best Children's Books of the Year
- A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Book
- ABC Best Books for Children
- California Readers Collection
Booklist
Here comes another buddy duo, that narrative staple in the world of easy readers. This time it's a pair of worms, Wiggle and Waggle. Four short stories chronicle their adventures. In the amusing "A Digging Song," the worms find digging hard work, so they make up a song: "We wiggle and waggle, squiggle and squirm; Digging in dirt is the life of the worm." The second chapter is a little flat, just moving a rock. But things pep up in the last two vignettes, where the worm buddies go for a picnic (dirt rolls!) and tunnel out their names. Longer than some easy readers, such as Mo Willems' recent titles about Elephant and Piggie, this will give new readers a bit of a challenge. The artwork, done in earth tones, of course, features two goofy, google-eyed worms. Good quality paper and an attractive design add to the book's pick-me-up quotient. –Cooper, Ilene
Publishers Weekly
The eponymous heroes of this early reader are two genial, googly-eyed earthworms who are also best friends. In five short chapters, Wiggle and Waggle (the latter, distinguished by a pair of glasses) learn that singing makes a job go faster; a difficult task—moving a big rock out of a tunnel—is made easier when individuals work together; and a rainy day needn’t be a spoiler if you have an upbeat outlook. Arnold’s (Super Swimmers) writing has an easygoing cadence and just the right amount of repetition (“They dug long tunnels, short tunnels, fat tunnels, and thin tunnels”), although her wrap-ups for each story can be fairly anticlimactic (after a day of singing and digging tunnels, Waggle muses, “We are a good team.... Let’s dig again tomorrow”). Peterson (No Time to Nap!) is all-around terrific, tightly cropping her environments to keep the action focused on her characters and conveying a sense of contrasting scale (an unharvested carrot dwarfs the two worms). As for the two leads themselves, they’re spunky, comically gangly and just vulnerable enough to be adorable. For youngsters smitten by this duo, a list of facts about worms and how they contribute to a healthy garden concludes this cheery collection. Ages 5-8. (July)
Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-58089-307-7
E-book
ISBN: 978-1-60734-017-1 PDF
Ages: 5-8
Page count: 48
6 1/2 x 8 3/4