On Dandelion Street, summer goes on forever. Basil Fletcher — age five, no shoes, no plans, one mostly-forgotten popsicle — is a stinker. Not a bad boy. A busy one. He wants to touch every single thing the world has made. Then he sees it: a little golden puffball, round as a cookie, soft as a whisper, bouncing from flower to flower and minding its own small business. Basil is not minding his. He swats. He grabs. He giggles and lunges. The puffball zigs. The puffball zags. And then — OW — something hot and sharp bites Basil right on the arm, and the puffball is gone before he even opens his eyes. It hurts on his arm. It hurts somewhere else, too. “But it was so CUTE,” he weeps. Home he runs, to Mama Rosemary and the cool washcloth and the words worth keeping: “It hurts. And then it will stop hurting. You are brave both ways.” But when the hurt turns into mad — when a small fist rises to the ceiling promising to SQUISH that puffball — Mama doesn’t say no. She kneels down and asks one gentle question: “Did it chase you… or did you chase it?” Basil opens his mouth. Then he closes it. THE PUFFBALL BIT ME: BUT IT WAS SO CUTE! is a funny, big-hearted picture book about the busiest kind of kid and the gentlest kind of correction — no lecture, no shame, just one question and a porch step to think on. It ends where kindness always ends in Sandalwood: back in the clover field, hands in lap, giving the small things their space — close enough to see, far enough to be safe. AND — every story has two sides. The puffball had somewhere to be, wings too small for the job, and a first flight going sideways. His side of this exact day is a whole book of its own: LITTLE LINDY AIRHART: A BEE BECAUSE HE CAN BE. Read them together and watch the same golden afternoon from both sets of eyes. Includes a seek-and-find page (look closely, look gently, no grabbing) with a certain shy shell-wearer hiding in the grass. Ages 3–7. Every book in the Mudpies Universe is built on three promises: no animal is ever harmed, the stories help instead of hurt, and yes always beats no. For every little stinker who ever loved something so much they chased it.