A review by nadjatiktinsky
A Long Road on a Short Day by Elizabeth Stickney, Gary D. Schmidt

This is the perfect first chapter book, in my opinion - ideal for introducing a young, picture-book-aged child to the concept of a novel. Papa and Samuel want to get a milk cow for Mama, but all they have to part with is a small Barlow knife. They go from farm to farm, making trades until they have a cow. Each chapter ends with a small cliffhanger into the next, and each chapter header includes a picture clue to the next item to be traded for. It's a clean-cut structure for teaching the way that chapters exist as units but build on each other to create a more complex story.