Nobody Is Perfick

1971, undated but later edition, from Scholastic
Bernard Waber
Nobody Is Perfick
Original price 95 cents, purchase price unknown
Very worn paperback with stains
B-

Waber is best known for his Lyle the crocodile books but he does a nice job with the young humans in the little unrelated stories that make up this book.  At least a couple of the stories seem to be urban, possibly New York, judging from the front stoops, but the settings are less important than the way the children see themselves and each other.  I think the two female-best-friend stories, "My Diary" and "Ten Best," resonated with me most as a kid, both because Waber captures how little girls sometimes are with each other, and because I've always been the type to keep a diary and make lists.  "That Was Some Dream.  Ha!  Ha!  Ha!" shows two little boys but they could be girls, or adults, or crocodiles, in the universality of a pair laughing hysterically, even when one of them doesn't know why.  (My guess is the purple cows in the dream were wearing striped pajamas.)

There are a few reasons I'm not rating this higher.  One, the artwork is just serviceable, with nothing really standing out.  Two, the book isn't that funny, although it's sometimes insightful.  And three, as with Richard Scarry and the alphabet, I'd like something tying all this together.