Meet three adorable best friends from debut author/illustrator talent with a huge Etsy following   Oliver, Charlie, and Lulu love to play outside together. Their favorite game is hide-and-seek, but it’s not fun for Oliver when his friends hide in the trees—he can’t reach them! So the friends set off to find a tree that Oliver can play in. But there’s a reason we don’t see elephants in trees, and just when Oliver is ready to give up the search, Charlie and Lulu surprise him with the perfect tree for them all to play in together! PreS-Gr 1—An adorable elephant, a sweet-faced rabbit, and a pudgy little owl play hide-and-seek in the forest. A problem arises when Lulu declares that trees are the best hiding places to hide, but Oliver, an elephant, is too big to join in the play. Saddened, he walks away from his friends, finds a large tree stump, and takes a nap. While he is asleep, his friends decorate the stump around Oliver, using branches, flowers, leaves, and grass to make a tree house that is big enough to accommodate them all. The pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations are muted and soft, and the text is spare and sweet. A quiet testament to friendship and creative problem solving.—Jennifer Miskec, Longwood University, Farmville, VA In her debut offering, Chase effectively captures how friendship warms the heart. Three cuddly animal friends—Lulu, Oliver, and Charlie—love to play hide-and-seek outside. But what fun is playing if they can’t all play together? Oliver (an elephant) cannot reach his friends’ hiding spots up in the trees, and the trio grows determined to “find a tree he can play in, too.” They quickly learn that most trees aren’t quite right for elephants, and Oliver leaves the search feeling very sad, and naps on a tree stump alone. When he awakens, he discovers a surprise that’s just right for all of them. Lulu and Charlie’s displays of creativity, collaboration, and compromise as they help their friend clearly model what it means to be a good pal, and the artwork, which utilizes gentle brushstrokes and stenciling, further highlights friendship’s simple pleasures. An excellent story for little ones at bedtime and for sharing anytime with beginning readers. Preschool-Kindergarten. --Annie Miller Praise for OLIVER’S TREE :     STARRED REVIEW FROM KIRKUS : “Warm, appealing watercolors defined with pen and ink and containing just the right amount of detail show the three friends . . . Young children will root for the three friends, enjoy the mild suspense and delight in the very satisfying ending. As gentle and unassuming as Oliver, this story thoroughly charms.”      FROM BOOKLIST : “In her debut offering, Chase effectively captures how friendship warms the heart. . . . An excellent story for little ones at bedtime and for sharing anytime with beginning readers.”     FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY : “Chase’s crisp, chipper narration never attempts to manipulate readers’ feelings, and her restraint, combined with her subtly expressive characters and the elegant prettiness of her watercolor and ink drawings, lends the book a distinctly British lilt that inoculates it against treacliness. The “Awww” that will all but inevitably accompany the final scene—a rousing game of pirate pretend play—is thoroughly deserved.”     FROM SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL : “An adorable elephant, a sweet-faced rabbit, and a pudgy little owl play hide-and-seek in the forest. . . . The pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations are muted and soft, and the text is spare and sweet. A quiet testament to friendship and creative problem solving.”     FROM SHELF AWARENESS : “ This charming tale of friendship will have children and parents eager for more from first-time author and artist Kit Chase.” Kit Chase is a freelance artist and writer who is perhaps best known for leaving behind trails of broken pencils, eraser fragments, chewed pens, and scraps of scribbled paper. She is the founder and imaginator for LullaLoo, LLC, which operates out of trafalgarssquare.com. Kit resides in sunny Southern California with her sidekick husband, four rollicking children, and a rowdy corgi. She dreams of someday having a backyard full of climb-worthy trees. This is her first book.