Many adults who grew up the 1980s doubtless remember a hairy, conical-shaped creature with very big feet that lived in the Australian bush, as well as a large hippopotamus that lived on a little girl’s roof and ate cake. The conical creature was, of course, Grug. Ted Prior’s Grug books were small, affordable paperbacks featuring simple but entertaining stories about this unflappable creature. The series is now being republished, and it includes new titles such as Grug and the Circus and Grug Learns to Read (Simon & Schuster, $4.99 pb, 32 pp).

These are endearing tales that are highly accessible to small children. They deal with things that children love to do, such as performing circus tricks or learning how to read. The bright illustrations are uncluttered, and the text is pared down into manageable bites. The illustrations echo the text, allowing the child to get the sense of the story through both words and images. With their naïve main character and child-sized format, these are encouraging and welcoming stories for young children who are learning to read.