The Perfect School Picture

by Deborah Diesen, Dan Santat (Illustrator)

Overview

It’s picture day, and the boy at the center of this charming story wants to make sure his picture is perfect. It seems as though everything’s going wrong for him—he has bedhead, a stained shirt, and a big scowl on his face. But when he goes up for his picture, he thinks about his terrible appearance, and he smiles—because he secretly wants his picture to be the worst ever taken! But just as he smiles, the photo is snapped, and his plan is ruined when he takes a totally adorable picture. Perfectly paired with the larger-than-life silliness of Dan Santat’s illustrations, this is a sweet and funny picture book about a classic school moment.
Praise"The narrator’s over-the-top voice makes reading aloud a must . . . high-energy comedy that involves only minor destruction."— Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613125274
Publisher:	Abrams
Publication date:	07/02/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
Lexile:	570L (what's this?)
File size:	27 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 7 Years

About the Author

Deborah Diesen is the author of The Pout-Pout Fish, a New York Times bestseller and one of TIME’s top 10 children’s books of 2008. She lives in Michigan.; Dan Santat is the author and illustrator of many books, including The Guild of Geniuses and Sidekicks. He won a Caldecott Medal for his book The Adventures of Beekle. www.dantat.com.

Editorial Reviews

04/22/2019

In a picture book based on the school photos almost every child has endured, Diesen (the Pout-Pout Fish series) focuses on a boy who plots to ruin his school picture. He wakes up with bed head, which Santat (The Princess and the Pit Stop) captures with faux-Polaroid mug shots of the boy’s hair sticking up like a wave. He rummages for his favorite shirt—“You might call it ‘stained.’ You might call it ‘wrinkled.’ You might even call it ‘smelly.’ You wouldn’t be wrong”—and then has a close encounter with some maple syrup. School offers a paint-splattered art assignment; Santat imagines a project that combines birdhouses and macaroni. But when the picture-taking moment arrives, things don’t go quite the way the narrator has planned. The narrator’s over-the-top voice makes reading aloud a must (“Wasted! Useless! Ruined...”) as Diesen portrays a boy who’s honing his mischief-making skills. Santat’s digital artwork chronicles the child’s emotional ride, from simmering rage to fiendish calculation to impatient exasperation. It’s high-energy comedy that involves only minor destruction. The small paperback includes a bound-in cardboard picture frame. Ages 5–7. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"The narrator’s over-the-top voice makes reading aloud a must . . . high-energy comedy that involves only minor destruction."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher