Book Description
for Nobody's Perfect by David Elliott and Sam Zuppardi
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
“'Nobody’s perfect.’ That’s what everybody says. And I guess they’re right.” A little boy provides examples of people in his life who are less than perfect: His little sister Gigi is loud, his best friend Jack is a show-off, and his mom is stubborn. He himself is messy, humorously illustrated in back-to-back full-page illustrations of his room before and after he cleans it. The “after” version is even messier than the original because of all the playing that occurred during the so-called cleaning. Perspectives flip when he goes back through the same list of imperfections and puts a positive spin on each one (“Sometimes I’m happy that Gigi is loud. Really loud!”), concluding that “nobody’s perfect, but sometimes they come close, and that’s perfect enough for me.” The scratchy childlike illustrations are expressive and exuberant in this light-hearted exploration of a universal theme. (Ages 3–7)
CCBC Choices 2016. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2016. Used with permission.