EVERYTHING IS PEACHY KEEN
by Trevor Crafts & Aaron Burakoff ; illustrated by Mister Hope
Crafts and Burakoff’s picture book critiques perfection and encourages young readers to go with the flow.
An unnamed peach wearing a fanny pack holds forth on finding everything around her peachy keen. The peach describes how her orchard is in perfect order and recounts planning a grand opening for a family member’s store and organizing a STEM competition. These successes have given the peach confidence; she reckons she could pull off an even bigger event with the Peach Party Jamboree, but it’s soon evident that the best-laid plans can go astray. The peach gets injured in the volleyball game, struggles with too many cars driving in for pit stops at the same time during a race, and can’t believe it when the grape band shrivels. The peach admits that she’s not so peachy keen after all, and with some help from the orchard residents, she learns that sometimes not having a plan makes things less perfect, but more fun. Crafts and Burakoff liberally pepper their prose with orchard-based humor and fruity plays on words. The message that it’s OK not to be perfect comes through clearly, assuring young readers that perfection isn’t necessary as long as everyone’s having fun. Hope’s vibrant illustrations depict a diverse harvest of fruit characters, their personalities shining through in their deftly rendered expressions.
A comforting lesson for anxious little perfectionists.