Goodnight Selfie

Of the innumerable reasons children have offered to explain why it’s too early for bed, this is a fairly new one: “But there are so many selfies I still need to take.” So protests Menchin’s redheaded heroine, who has inherited her brother’s old camera-phone and his penchant for taking photos of himself. Menchin (Grandma in Blue with Red Hat) and Collet-Derby (The Boulder Brothers: Meet Mo and Jo) follow the girl through a day’s worth of photos, from a “just-woke-up-with-crazy-hair selfie” to a don’t-try-this-at-home “skateboarding-to-school selfie.” Halfway in, the girl’s mother quietly suggests, “Why not take a photo of someone else?” While the girl snaps a few pictures of her family members (including her grandmother’s many, many cats), she remains in the photos, too, and quickly resumes selfie taking. Collet-Derby valiantly plays with visual perspectives in his loose, cheery digital cartoons, but he can’t escape the reality that an endless parade of selfies isn’t much more interesting in the pages of a picture book than it is in an Instagram feed. Ages 4–8. Illustrator’s agency: Bright Literary Agency. (Oct.)