BILLY TARTLE IN SAY CHEESE!

Billy’s plans to liven up his class picture are derailed, but only temporarily in this engaging, comic-strip–style debut. Despite precise instructions to the barber to give him a spiky pink ’do like his TV hero Supermonkey, Billy ends up looking, as he puts it, “normal.” What a bummer. Being a lad given to pushing the envelope, however, he doesn’t give up, and even though subsequent efforts like trying to go to school wearing only a tie and underwear (“Mom, you only said I have to wear a tie.”) don’t get far, he triumphs in the end. Townsend tells the nearly all-dialogue tale in large, digitally colored panels featuring stylized but simply drawn figures with Little Orphan Annie eyes and, in the children at least, a definite predilection for tomfoolery. He’s clearly still in touch with his inner mischief-maker, and so should have no trouble connecting to his young audience. (Picture book. 6-8)