Elephant's Story — Tracey Campbell Pearson

The day Gracie loses her favorite book, Elephant finds it. He sniffs the words ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS and--oops--they go up his trunk, where they wiggle and jiggle and make him sneeze. The letters fly through the air helter skelter, and when Elephant tries to put them back together, he can't figure out how to make the right words that fit. He asks his friends for help, but they just choose some of the letters to make up their own words--Alligator wants to CHEW them, Seal SPINs them, Monkeys THROW them, and Bear just SNOREs. Lucky for elephant, Gracie comes looking for her book. She makes the letters into the right words and then adds some of her own: a girl went to the zoo and made a new friend.