Perfect Percy

This is an interesting book touching on a very difficult area. All children at some point must experience the complicated emotions of embarrassment at their parents' behaviour and the feelings of guilt that attend the wish that their parents were more like those of their friends. In this story Percy, the perfect grasshopper, decides to move next door to live with the Beetle family but finds that their apparent perfection does not include kindness and caring for any creatures they consider imperfect. His zany parents, however, immediately come to the rescue of a lost baby stinkbug in their own inimitable but effective ways. Perfect Percy learns an important lesson and there were many thoughtful expressions on the faces of our infants when I based an assembly on the story. Care needs to be taken as some of the American mores are not immediately understood and unfortunately some of my more 'pi' girls were rather keen on becoming the 'Pupil of the Month' of our class! The book has some lovely touches of humour and the illustrations particularly impressed the children. It deserves a special place on the classroom shelves for not ducking the issue and for stimulating some very good personal discussion amongst the kids.