In our quest for easy readers (and yes, Joseph is advancing very well, thanks – his first grade teacher and curriculum is very good. But then that’s my experience. Everything’s great almost everywhere until about third grade. Then at that point, things just start going off the rails and somehow teaching and learning in the modern world start getting too complicated for everyone and at a certain point everyone just sort of stops and paints murals of the rainforests for weeks on end.)..

…ah yes. I have another suggestion:
…the quite scintillating Fly Guy series by Tedd Arnold. About a boy and his pet fly, if you must know. I’ve liked Arnold’s picture books, which tend to the absurd and punny, with their trademark er…bug-eyed characters. These Early Readers are pretty readable (remember one of our complaints before was that way too many books labeled “Level 1” are peppered with words that too difficult  for true Early Readers), interesting, and amusing. Although if you look too long at the very weird, sort of hairy Fly Guy, it might put you off your evening snack. Which would not be a bad thing, probably.
Speaking of bugs and such creatures – well, arachnids – if you have an interest in such things, check out this page on Vietnamese Spiders and the other pages for various creatures provided by this photographer. I actually clicked on it via some book blog (can’t remember which one), and the images and creatures are absolutely beautiful and stunning, witnesses, in their own quirky, fantastical ways to their Creator and ours.
(And if you have a fear of spiders – well, don’t click, obviously. I once worked for a school principal who had such a fear of snakes that she taped pages in books with photos of snakes on them together, so she wouldn’t accidentally open to them. She was a science teacher, which made it all…difficult.)