Everything Is Fine!

by Michelle Sumovich, Sarah Jacoby (Illustrator)

Overview

Michelle Sumovich and Sarah Jacoby deliver an outlandish and utterly hilarious tale about a tired mother who unknowingly slurps her daughter up during a spaghetti dinner. A hysterical picture book full of old-world chaos, reminiscent of Tomi Ungerer, William Steig, and Strega Nona.

Sweet Paulette loves her mother tirelessly...and her exhausted mother must really love her too.     

Whoopsie! Whoopsie! Whoopsie!!

Never mind that trail of chaos and smashed tomatoes at the market, because Paulette is perfect and precious and EVERYTHING IS FINE! But when her darling daughter suddenly goes missing, Paulette’s mother must comb through a village of beastly children and other flustered parents to find her own child in the most unexpected of places.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063295827
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/15/2024
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	530,594
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 11.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Michelle Sumovich is a Portland-based author who strives to craft stories that appeal to children’s sense of wonder, humor, and observation. Her debut picture book, One More Jar of Jam, illustrated by Gracey Zhang, came out with Dial Books and will be followed by the upcoming I Have Three Cats, illustrated by Laura Park.

Sarah Jacoby’s illustrations have won awards from the Society of Illustrators (Gold Medal), Creative Quarterly, American Illustration, and Communication Arts. She is the author and illustrator of Forever or a Day. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You can learn more about Sarah at thesarahjacoby.com.

Editorial Reviews

08/12/2024

In this madcap romp, Sumovich (One More Jar of Jam) and Jacoby (Doris) consider what might happen when a mother, after a long day of shopping and parenting, unwittingly slurps up daughter Paulette along with her evening meal. When the pale-skinned duo set out for the market, wispy multimedia spreads and vignettes imagine a fairy tale world of wooden stalls and beguiling farm animals, where Paulette’s mother, arrayed in frothy pink, demonstrates happy disregard for the misdeeds of her “precious tornado.” “Everything was fine!” assures winking narration as Paulette has a “little whoopsie at the fresh pasta stand” and applies tomatoes to the farmer’s goat. After the child sniffs a bottle at the herbalist’s wagon, mother and daughter head home and cook “a pleasant sauce (so pleasant),” and the fateful mouthful is swallowed. Readers see a cutaway view of Paulette sleeping safely in her mother’s stomach, but her frantic mama, who thinks she’s lost, searches everywhere, encountering overwhelmed parents and “beastly” children, until the herbalist returns. It’s a fantastical idyll that slyly mines the theme of doting adults and obstreperous children. Secondary characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Hannah Mann, Writers House. Illustrator’s agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly