It's Picture Day Today!

An annual event in every elementary-school classroom is the taking of the group portrait. Here, the “kids” are made up of buttons and bits of string, cardboard, feathers, grommets, and such, and are a pretty disheveled lot before Glue (late; “stuck in traffic”) arrives to sort everyone out and settle everything down. An imaginative invitation to seeing, to creative crafts, to story-hour performance.

Megan McDonald is the author of the Judy Moody books, and is a gifted storyteller for the youngest listener. She lives with her family in Sebastopol, California. Her website is meganmcdonald.net.

Katherine Tillotson is the illustrator of several children’s books. For this story, she cut paper created from a centuries-old technique to make pictures. Visit her at katherinetillotson.com.