and her
Unpredictably
Perfect Day
A story about how a sprinkling of
mistakes can be a recipe for success
Rochel Lieberman
Illustrated by Lloyd Jones
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia
Every Sunday Pearla’s favorite thing to do is to help her dad in his bakery, Knead It! She loves it more than playing checkers or jumping on her pogo stick.
Pearla is only 10, but she is able to bake perfect cookies and cupcakes like a professional baker. Her delicious round cookies with perfect pointy chocolate chips and tall fluffy cupcakes with perfect wiggly white cream are known far and wide.
Each Sunday, just about everyone in Sunshine City comes to buy Pearla’s goodies. People even drive from far away to buy her perfect baked goods.
Pearla feels proud that everyone loves her cookies and cupcakes.
It’s Sunday morning! Pearla jumps out of bed, precisely picks out her perfect baking clothes and pointy baker hat, and scrambles down the stairs.
She wants to start baking
her perfect cookies and cupcakes right away.
She skips all the way down th block to Knead It!
Pearla gathers all the ingredients and lines them up with precision on the counter: flour, eggs, vanilla, butter, and salt.
She picks out her perfect mixing bowl, the one with pink and purple pansies. She begins mixing the ingredients all together in their perfect order.
As she mixes she’s thinking about all the people who will come today to eat her cookies and cupcakes.
First, she mixes the batter to make
her perfectly round cookies.
Next, she uses strong and
fast hands to whip her tall fluffy
cupcakes.
Into the oven they go!
Oh no
oh no
oh no!
Pearla realizes she forgot to add the baking powder to the cookies and cupcakes. How could she do something so imperfect? But it’s too late, the cookies and cupcakes are already beginning to bake.
Pearla starts to feel nervous. She made a mistake, and this is just not okay in Pearla’s perfect world.
She doesn’t know what to do. Pearla paces back and forth and bites her lip. She mutters softly, “Blllllega Blllllga.”
Pearla stands up tall, and takes a deep breath.
She smiles and thinks,
“I’m a person.
People are not perfect.
I did my best.
I know
I will be helped
with the rest.”
Ding! The timer on the oven goes off. Pearla opens the oven door and peeks inside. She sees that her round circle cookies have come out like triangles and her tall fluffy cupcakes are flat like squares.
“Oh no!” Pearla exclaims. “My cookies and cupcakes are ruined! These are not perfect.” She says to herself in a teeny tiny voice,
“Who will want them?”
Pearla plops down to the floor, and begins twisting her hair around her finger.
Suddenly, she feels hopeful.
She jumps up and says,
“I have a
plan!
I’m going to sell these imperfect
cookies and cupcakes.”
Pearla grabs a thick black marker and writes “IMPERFECT” on a large white sign. She places the sign near the triangle cookies and the square cupcakes. She will tell the customers that they can pay less money for these imperfect items.
It’s the perfect plan!
Just then, the door creaks open and the Pertraplinski family comes in. Mr. and Mrs. Pertraplinski, along with their dog, are always the first customers and they always, always, always wear triangle shirts, bags, and earrings. Mrs. Pertraplinski even wears triangle-shaped eyeglasses.
Pearla bites her lip and scrunches her eyes shut tight. She’s feeling nervous and is just sure the Pertraplinskis will be disappointed to find the imperfect cookies.
Mrs. Pertraplinski walks over to the counter, looks at the cookies and jumps up and down gleefully. “Today is our lucky day!” she shouts out. “This is perfect! We love triangles! We never saw triangle chocolate chip cookies before. These may have a sign that says IMPERFECT, but they are perfect for us.”
Mrs. Pertraplinski buys two boxes of triangle cookies.
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