The Rescue at Fragment Crag, The Red Tide, and The Green-Face Virus by Michael Clay Thompson feature the characters he created in his language arts curriculum to help explain grammar and writing rules. Following requests for more about these characters, he decided that Mud the Fish should have a series of adventures of his own.

The novels are described as “classic words novels,” designed to introduce young readers to the literary words that Michael identified in his classic words vocabulary research. They are full-length books (about 100 pages each), exuberant, funny, and abounding in alliteration and other poetic techniques. Difficult words are defined at the bottom of each page. The books are illustrated with charming drawings.

Michael writes in the introduction to the manuals:

“These Mud novels are like training wheels for the classics, with big words, long length, complex characters, intricate plots, and big ideas, all in a magical world where little animals love sentences and stay loyal to each other.”