George and Martha: The Complete Stories of Two Best Friends

George and Martha have such a wonderful friendship; one of the great things about it is that it's not saccharine - both George and Martha are prickly and finicky and sometimes inadvertantly mean to each other. But they forgive each other and love each other, regardless.

I like how each book is formatted as a short story, but somehow all 5 stories in each book end up tying back into each other by the end.

I also love the sheer size of George and Martha and how the books shows them barely squeezing into theater seats and the like. I also looooooove all of Martha's skirts. She's got great taste!

The illustrations are masterful compositions and so much personality is conveyed in the eye-dots! James Marshall was truly amazing.

George and Martha are best friends, and James Marshall’s story books show us what that means. They tell the truth to each other, even if it hurts; they respect each other’s privacy; they learn what it means to be friends. They are also hippos, and that makes the illustrations to these stories lots of fun. James Marshall wrote the first book (George and Martha) in 1972. Five sequels followed in the next 15 years. I loved the first one: the clever illustrations were imperative to the humor and plot of the five very short stories. The subsequent books, while equally ridiculous (i.e., humorous), didn’t charm me as much.

These are some of the best stories you could ever read to a child - they're fun, smart, and teach goofy lessons without preaching.

That aside - my parents used to read them to me when I was little and my copy of this book was given to me by a very dear friend. (Okay - it was yanked from our college's teaching collection - but he gave it to me none the less!)

My kids laugh out loud every time we read George and Martha. So simple, so insightful, and so funny!

My favorite stories are the ones that end a beat sooner than expected, and leave the reader feeling slightly unsteady. Also, adorable drawings of hippos.

Another collection. These are bizarre little stories.

In one case, the moral is lying to others is bad; in many others, they do exactly that to get out of various situations.

On top of that, several just end abruptly.

Weird and not really worth re-reading in my opinion. But the kids currently seem to love them. So we’ll see.

This is a charmingly simple and funny book of short-short stories for little kids. I can't really describe it, but my niece was cracking up over these as she read them!