My Best Friend Is as Sharp as a Pencil and Other Funny Classroom Portraits

This book’s narrator, sketched in charcoal, uses objects and similes to illustrate her answers to her grandmother’s questions about school. Mrs. Sheila, the librarian, is as “interesting as a book full of stories. When she reads them, her eyes shine like marbles.” There’s a photograph included for each object, and on the next page, Mrs. Sheila’s portrait is enhanced with the objects used to describe her (her eyes are indeed marbles). Other portraits include “Sofia (the wildest girl in my class),” whose smile is made from a string of jingle bells, and Mildred, the class turtle. Like its predecessor, My Dog Is as Smelly as Dirty Socks, this is a gleeful fusion of collage and figurative language. Ages 4–8. (May)