BEST DAY EVER

A visual treat for the observant.

Studious, bespectacled, all-about-business William, who presents white, has achieved five of his six goals for summer: earn Math Camp MVP, read 50 books, learn Spanish, obtain a black belt in karate, and perform a perfect guitar recital. But the sixth is a stumper: “have most fun ever!” He must also constantly ward off distractions from his gregarious, rambunctious neighbor Anna, a young, brown-skinned girl who keeps interrupting his serious attempts at fun with her harebrained make-believe play. Wearing wacky, hodgepodge outfits, she invites him on adventures, like jumping the Grand Canyon on their motorcycles “to escape from the GREEDY TOAD PIRATE who keeps trying to steal our TREASURE with his long, sticky tongue.” William’s homemade fun meter shows only the saddest face during his solo play while Anna’s activities make it grin broadly. Young readers will have a rollicking good time as they guess what the little girl next door will think up next. Sharp-eyed readers will also locate a curious host of entertaining animals that sobersides William fails to notice. Ceulemans’ delightfully inventive, fantastical crayon sketches divide Anna’s zany world from William’s matter-of-fact one, offering readers lots to notice and giggle about. By the conclusion, the animals and even William have been absorbed into Anna’s crayon-filled universe.

Fun with a capital F, this tale goes out to all those workaholic kids who need some.