Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport

"I live at 165 East 95th Street, and I'm going to stay here forever," says the young hero firmly. After all, out West nobody plays baseball because they're too busy chasing buffaloes, and you have to ride a horse to school even if you don't know how, and you can't sit down because of the cactus. But his parents are moving West, and they say he has to go, too. Once there, however, the boy doesn't meet the Gila monsters he expected. And on the ride to his new home (by taxi, not horse) he discovers the West is neither as different nor as bad as he'd imagined. Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Byron Barton share a keen sense of the ridiculous and a compassionate understanding of a child's anxieties. Together they have created a perceptive, exuberantly funny picture book that will have children in all parts of the country laughing away their own fears about new experiences.