Happy Swap Ideas Day!
Celebrating Swap Ideas Day with picture books about some unusual swaps.
Troll Swap written and illustrated by Leigh Hodgkinson (2013)
Timothy Limpet is a troll, but he’s not like other trolls. He’s nice and tidy and polite. Tabitha Lumpet is a girl, but she’s not like other girls. She’s loud and messy and loopy. Being like other boys and girls is almost impossible for Tabitha, and being a disgusting troll isn’t easy for Timothy either. The solution to all their problems… swap places. Timothy went home to Tabitha’s house and was a nice and polite and tidy little girl. And Tabitha went to Timothy’s home and was a loud and loopy first-class troll. But now, life seemed dull. Everything was b-o-r-i-n-g! It was time to swap back and they both went home where they belonged.
The Sandwich Swap written by Rania Al Abdullah and Kelly DiPucchio and illustrated by Tricia Tusa (2010)
Lily and Salma were best friends. They did everything together, but they each secretly felt sorry for the other because they ate different sandwiches for lunch. Salma ate weird and yucky, icky chickpea paste every day, and Lily ate strange and gross, gooey peanut paste every day. Then one day, it all came out… each one hurt the other’s feelings and the hurt feelings turned to anger. Pretty soon, the whole cafeteria had taken sides. No one had anything nice to say to the other. At first they made rude comments about the sandwiches, and then they made rude comments about each other. And a giant food fight erupted in the cafeteria. The girls were called into the principal’s office. The next day they agreed to take a bite of each other’s sandwiches. MMMmmm! Yummy! And the girls returned to the principal’s office with a suggest event for the whole school… a sandwich swap!
One Fine Trade written by Bobbi Miller and illustrated by Will Hillenbrand (2009)
Georgy Piney Woods was a very fine peddler. On morning his daughter Georgianne asked him to trade her rail-skinny horse for a shiny silver dollar so she could buy a pretty new wedding dress. ‘Always for you, child mine’ he said and he rode the horse into town to make the trade. Along the way, he met a man with a fat brown cow and traded the horse for the cow. Then he met an old woman with old hound dog and traded the cow for the dog. Pretty soon he met a hunter with a cypress stick and traded the dog for a stick. Walking through the swamp with his cypress stick, Georgy Piney Woods came upon a rattlesnake who bit his stick. The stick was so full of poison it swelled up as big as a tree, two trees, three trees. Then along came a railroad man who promised to bring Georgy Piney Woods a silver dollar if he would give him the stick to make railroad ties. But as he chopped down the stick it became smaller and smaller until they weren’t any bigger than toothpicks. Luckily for Georgy Piney Woods, the railroad man’s wife was in need of toothpicks and she paid him one silver dollar for the toothpicks. So Georgianne got a pretty new wedding dress… and asked her daddy if he could trade her little red hen for a shiny silver dime so she could buy a pretty veil.
Juliana Lee 
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