How to Pee Your Pants: The Right Way

K-Gr 3–The reality of potty accidents is handled with humor in this charming story. It begins by acknowledging that wetting happens, “It can happen when you are sleeping. It can happen in class.” The reasons one might not go when they need to are handled in a matter-of-fact way: “Maybe you didn’t want to miss out on something spectacular.” Despite various attempts to prevent it, the accident happens. What now? To avoid notice, “Create a distraction” is one of many suggestions made. The story mentions adults (“They’ve probably forgotten what it’s like to pee their pants. They’ll remember in a couple of years”) and a reminder to help others in the same situation. The main character is a bird with glasses, whose desperation to hold it and not miss anything is obvious in all the drawings, from the end pages up until “You peed your pants,” which is just text on a yellow page. The cartoon drawings are a mixture of full-page illustrations with integrated text, smaller drawings set apart in shapes, and panels with text below. The bird and their animal classmates are all expressively drawn in mostly muted greens and red shades with a bird’s yellow beak standing out. The end pages at the back show bird with a friend, playing together after the incident.