The Nocturnals: The Chestnut Challenge by Tracey Hecht

In The Chestnut Challenge, the nocturnal trio of silly animals are off on a new adventure in their neck of the woods. While the friends are playing a game of chestnut checkers, they discover some new competition: Chandler the chinchilla. Chandler challenges Tobin the pangolin to a game to determine the true checkers champion. But it turns out that Chandler the chinchilla is nothing more than a checkers cheater. When Chandler is caught in the act, the friends are upset, but they offer the chinchilla grace and forgiveness for his mistake. All is well in the land of The Nocturnals and a second chance leads to a new friendship.

The Chestnut Challenge is a Level 3 Grow  and Read book that will appeal to children in Grades 2-3. The vocabulary is challenging, phonetic, and appropriate for the targeted audience. The book is educational and contains fun facts about the obscure animals that are featured in this light-hearted read. This is a great way to teach children about animals that they may not have heard of before. Also, the obvious highlight of this book is the lesson to be learned. Teaching children about moving on from mistakes is something that is essential and this book teaches that concept well. Children will learn character development while finding joy in the pages of this humorous read.