Lane Smith’s A Perfect Day was released early this year (February) and is a book that has made an appearance on multiple Caldecott prediction lists throughout the year. It’s a story that, from a pedagogical point of view (I was trained as a school librarian, so I can’t help it), works well to demonstrate point of view. And it’s a story that will get child readers thinking about how our perspectives shape what we see and how we define the world — much like last year’s Caldecott Honor book They All Saw a Cat.

But Smith also subverts what could have been a one-note story about how various creatures define happiness into a tale of mischief and the food chain — and how those atop it sometimes determine the rules. (Is it a stretch to say this layer of dark humor gives the book a political relevance? Maybe. But it did cross my mind as I read it.)

If you haven’t seen it yet, let me summarize: sunny yellow endpapers and a big, warm sun open the book. We eventually see a house in the country. We meet Cat, happy in a bed of daffodils; Dog, wading in a tub of water; Chickadee, eating seed from the bird feeder; and Squirrel, despite not being able to get to the birdseed, finding a corncob in the grass. A boy named Bert is behind all of this, filling the tub with water for Dog, refilling the bird feeder, and dropping the corncob for Squirrel. It “was a perfect day” for each of these animals, we read as we meet each one.

It turns out that both grammar and font size are crucial in this book, given the turn the story takes in the form of Bear’s appearance. “It WAS a perfect day for Squirrel,” we suddenly read, the “was” enlarged and emboldened. Squirrel’s happiness is now very much in the past tense, as Bear barges in to take the corncob. (This is, thus far, my favorite picture book spread of 2017.) Bear also essentially takes away Chickadee’s, Dog’s, and Cat’s contentment by lumbering in and taking what he wants. The notion of a "perfect day" is a thing of the past for the now-hapless small creatures, having joined Bert inside the house on the final page to stare out the window in shock. Bear, in fact, is the one now having a perfect day.

All of this is accomplished with a very spare text. As I said, font size communicates much meaning here.

And so does the artwork. Frisky is a word that comes to mind for these mixed-media illustrations, which play with scale in effective ways. Bear, the mischief-maker of this tale, takes up nearly every inch of some of these spreads. And his entrance still manages to give readers a bit of a jolt, despite his appearance on the cover. On each spread where we read “it was a perfect day for …”, the illustration takes up about three-quarters of the space — with a column of white space occupying a quarter of it on the verso page. So, when Bear suddenly appears, we see him walk right through that white space on a wordless spread with Chickadee and Squirrel. He’s looking right at Squirrel’s corncob, almost oblivious to the days he's about to ruin for the smaller creatures.

You can see some of Smith’s broad paintbrush strokes on some of the animals — you want to reach out and touch them — which gives the book spontaneity and energy. Pay close attention to font color too, and you’ll see that each animal gets its own color, which is re-visited on the later spreads: The letters in “It WAS a perfect day for Dog” are in the light blue color assigned to Dog earlier, yet the “was” is bigger, bolder, and assigned the dark brown color given to Bear, the same color as his fur.

The story’s ending, as everyone stares sadly (from indoors) at Bear, is a freeze frame of an ending. It’s abrupt, but Smith communicates a great deal by having the text read “It was a perfect day for Bear,” yet showing us Squirrel, Chickadee, Cat, Dog, and Bert instead. Bear’s perfect day left them disappointed. “Perfect” doesn’t exist on its own, after all. It’s in the eye of the beholder.

Read the Horn Book Magazine review of A Perfect Day.