Peter and the Penny Tree

by Thomas James, Dodie O'Keefe (Illustrator)

A First-Start Easy Reader

Peter discovers that pennies won't grow on trees.

This easy reader contains only 53 different words, repeated often to help the young reader learn word recognition and interest in reading.

Genres: Childrens

22 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1970

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Thomas James was born in 1946 and lived most of his life in Joliet, Illinois. He was the author of Letters to a Stranger. His poetry appeared in magazines and anthologies, including North American Review, Poetry, and Poetry Northwest, which awarded him the Theodore Roethke Prize in 1969. In 1974, at the age of twenty-seven, he died shortly after the original publication of his only book.

Reviews

[Rick Christiansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it more as a child than rereading it as an adult.

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This easy reader book is short and funny. Children will chuckle at Peter's attempts to grow pennies and the limited vocabulary and repeated phrases help them learn to read.

I had the opportunity to visit with a friend and check out a few boxes of children's books she had kept from her childhood and her son's. The books are quite old and many are out of print, so it was a wonderful chance to revisit with some stories I read when I was young and to discover others I'd never seen before.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short and simple First-Start Easy Reader with gold, black, and white illustrations. Peter gets pennies from family members and has the idea to plant 3 to grow a penny tree. He discovers water and sun don't make pennies grow but working and helping can add to his pennies. A nice early reader with a great message.

[Jake]

this was one of mama's favorite first reader books when she was little