101 Reasons Why I'm Not Taking a Bath

PreS-Gr 2—With excuses aplenty, a wide-eyed, obviously dirty boy keeps a calendar of his weekly bath events and demands his floaties, goggles, scuba tank, surfboard, canoe, and bike merely to enter the tub. "Baths are too WET! And water makes my fingers wrinkly," he cries. After all, "aliens might attack…or there might be a meteor shower" while he's in the bath. A full temper tantrum precedes bath time, but immersion in the water miraculously results in a change of heart as he discovers 102 reasons not to get out of the tub. Digitally created images and varying perspectives accentuate large eyes and raised eyebrows, while both visuals and text introduce his grimy world, from dirt and water-smudged endpapers to the permanent marker on his colorful hands. Pair this title with Mo Willems's The Pigeon Needs a Bath! to compare similar themes of persuasive writing.