Just How We Roll! Pea, Bee, and Jay--Stuck Together by Brian "Smitty" Smith

"GOOD MORNING!" LITTLE PEA SAYS.

"SHUSH!" SAYS MA. "YOU'LL WAKE THE WHOLE POD. YOU KNOW HOW CRANKY GRANDPA GETS!" 

 "TIME TO GET ROLLING," SAYS PEA.

 "NO ROLLING TOO FAR FROM OUR ROW!" SAYS MA.

But Pea just rolls his eyes at his mother's advice and goes off in search of adventures. He runs into Blueberry and Strawberry.

"ROLL WITH ME AND YOU'LL BE ROLLING FAST AND FREE!  EASY PEAS-Y!" HE BRAGS.

They dare Pea to prove his prowess by rolling beyond the farm's fence and bringing back a red leaf from a tree on the other side. But it's not as easy as Pea thinks. Rain begins to fall, he's washed into a muddy ravine and when he grabs a vine to swing up on, he bumps into a bee, who brags there are buzz-illions just like her, and then into a blue jay who says he never learned to fly and fell out of his tree. Pea can sees no way this odd pair can be any help! Then he looks up at Jay's tree.

"THE TREE!" SHOUTS PEA.

That's IT! What does he see but the tree with red leaves. All he has to do is carry back a leaf and he'll be the hero of the garden patch! But there's one piece of this problem Pea didn't perceive! How can he carry the leaf?

It seems that they all just need to do what comes naturally, in Brian "Smitty" Smith's comic story, Pea, Bee, & Jay 1: Stuck Together (Harper, 2020), done up in graphic style, features an unlikely triumvirant--Pea, who just wants to roll, Bee, who is seeking to flee her job as queen of the hive, and a blue jay who needs to flap his wings--who together find their way back to the row where Pea needs to report to his pod before he is grounded. With plenty of funny, kid-pleasing puns, kids will be rolling with laughter at this silly tale of an unlikely trio who together have all the right stuff. "Readers will 'bee' delighted by this earnest and endearing tale," says Kirkus Reviews in a starred review.