BORED

Boredom has its day in the sun when one girl falls prey to its sway.

After alerting the household (“I’m boooored!”), Rita drapes her body over couch arms, pillows, handbags, and the floor. She makes halfhearted efforts to alleviate her situation, like trying to surprise herself in her own mirror and stretching from the bed to the top of her door. Nothing works. “Her brain [feels] like a fuzzy rock.” In time, Rita begins to wonder about the other bored people in the world. What if they all got on a bus, then floated to Bored Island? There, they could begin to communicate with whales, dig tunnels in search of treasure, start a band, and even warp space and time. By the time Rita is called down to dinner, she objects. She’s busy! Sala truly remembers the all-encompassing crush of tedium that kids experience—and the lengths to which they’ll go to make their status known. The sheer physicality of the book is a key to its delight; this is ideal reading for kids who claim to suffer the same malady. Human forms are infinitely flexible, sometimes wiggly or flopped in impossible positions. Rita is light-skinned; the characters in her daydream are racially and geographically diverse.

A clever reminder that from great boredom comes great invention.