Trouble at Table 5 #1: The Candy Caper

By Tom Watson and Marta Kissi

From the author of Stick Dog comes the first book in a highly illustrated early chapter book series about three best friends whose plans, missions, and schemes are sure to shake up their school. 

Molly gets things stuck in her head sometimes. When she sees a jar of candy on Principal Shelton’s desk, she absolutely needs to know how many candies are in that jar!

Luckily, her two best friends, Simon and Rosie, are ready to help her find the answer—even if it means detention for all of them!

HarperChapters build confident readers one chapter at a time! With short, fast-paced books, art on every page, and milestone markers at the end of every chapter, they're the perfect next step for fans of I Can Read!

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Feb 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9780062953421

Tom Watson

Tom Watson lives in Chicago with his wife, daughter, and son. He also has a dog, as you could probably guess. The dog is a Labrador-Newfoundland mix. Tom says he looks like a Labrador with a bad perm. He wanted to name the dog "Put Your Shirt On" (please don't ask why), but he was outvoted by his family. The dog's name is Shadow. Early in his career Tom worked in politics, including a stint as the chief speechwriter for the governor of Ohio. This experience helped him develop the unique, storytelling narrative style of the Stick Dog books. More important, Tom's time in politics made him realize a very important thing: Kids are way smarter than adults. And it's a lot more fun and rewarding to write stories for them than to write speeches for grown-ups.

Book preview

Reviews for Trouble at Table 5 #1

[jennybeast · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm really not sure how I feel about this one -- on the one hand, I like the representation of neurodivergence and how Molly's friends and family just totally accept her. When something gets stuck in her head, they work to help her get it unstuck. However, in this case the plan is to cause a disruption, lie to the principal and steal the candy jar. And I don't really feels satisfied with that on two counts -- first of all, couldn't they just ask to count the candy? Secondly, if they replaced the candy jar with a same-sized jar with the same amount of the same candy in it, why couldn't she just count her own jar? If that wasn't good enough because it wasn't the original jar, why doesn't the second one get stuck in her head, too? Did she count it before the bait and switch? And ok, so maybe this is a harmless wish-fulfillment sort of book, but frankly the disconnect gets stuck in -my- head. Anyway. It's an interesting story.

[sjgirl-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A quick fun read, a solid choice for kids transitioning to chapter books who like a bit of soft humor and still want some cute illustrations in their reading life. And those young readers will likely enjoy that every so often the book congratulates you for how much you’ve read.The title caper was entertaining and creative even if it did seem like there was a simpler solution the kids overlooked.The extremely light tone of this one meant the book doesn’t really delve into Molly’s obsessive compulsive tendencies and what if anything her parents might be doing to get her help in managing the situation so that was perhaps an opportunity missed, but I did like that the parents and Molly’s friends show her nothing but kindness and patience throughout the story.