PERFECT written and illustrated by Max Amato is a picture book about two points of view between pink eraser and yellow pencil, their conflict and their eventual creative solution. The personifications are delightful.
Pink eraser is determined that every surface must be totally pristine. “This page is perfectly clean. Just the way I like it, and just the way it’s going to stay,” says eraser with his hands on his hips. But the yellow pencil has other ideas as he draws squiggles across the page. Eraser works hard cleaning up what he calls “a mess” only to have pencil, who is having a great deal of fun, draw a whirlwind across the page. Pencil then creates an army of pencils all busy making dark lead marks. Eraser can’t keep up with it all. Their strokes are everywhere. He falls down in despair.
Then, something marvelous happens as eraser gets up and notices the white outline of his body on the fully-blackened page. Eraser gets excited and starts to make pictures of the sun, planets, and rockets by erasing the black background in such a way as to draw these various shapes. However, pencil comes along and covers over all of the outer space drawings! Eraser retreats to clean white pages where he feels more comfortable---- but something is all wrong. Eraser is not happy. He calls out to pencil and they both have an “aha” moment: if you work together something beautiful can happen. And it does.
PERFECT written and illustrated with wisdom and a great deal of fun by Max Amato is a clever story with a genuine message for children 4-8 years of age (Scholastic Press, 2019).
Questions and activities for PERFECT
Are you more like a bossy pink eraser who likes everything in its place or a fun-loving yellow pencil who likes to create but often leaves a mess? Go to your bedroom and have a look. Then draw a picture of your bedroom that shows which character in this book you are most like. Have fun and be honest.
When is it necessary to be neat and when is it necessary to be messy? Discuss it with your parents and make a double list of all the times you think it is better to be neat AND all the times you think it is best to be messy. Keep updating this list as the weeks roll on and see how often this tug of war between messy and neat takes place and how you handle it.
In this book, pencil and eraser begin to learn how to work together to produce something. This is called collaboration. Have you ever had a friend who you have collaborated with to produce a work of art, developed an idea to solve a problem, or written a report for presentation in class? Think about it. How did the collaboration make you feel?
