BUT MOM, EVERYBODY ELSE DOES

In order to convince her mother that her acts and desires are not only legitimate but also universal, a young girl paints humorous and exaggerated pictures to prove her point. When her mother comes into her bedroom and eyes the disaster area, the young girl says, “But Mom, everybody has a messy room,” picturing in her mind (and a large bubble on the page) the various toxic waste sites that are her friends’ rooms and much more lethal than her small clutter. And everyone gets a bigger allowance as images dance in her head of armored cars dropping off great sacks of moola to her friends. And absolutely everyone failed that test at school. She fancies a news reporter delivering the sound bite, “The world was stunned by the news that every child in the universe failed the test . . . ” So it goes through nobody walking to school and everybody sleeping with the dog, nobody has to practice, and everybody can paint better than she can. Cushman’s (What Teachers Can’t Do, p. 814, etc.) illustrations never push too hard for effect and so give credence to the girl’s outrageous conjectures, which serve as bright hailings to a vivid imagination. (Picture book. 4-8)