What I Loved:

Well this book checked all the boxes for me!
✔️ Great Illustration
✔️ Adorable Main Character
✔️ An “It’s okay to not be perfect” Story

My Synopsis:

Raven loves to doodle. She visits a museum and has her heart set to draw beautiful doodles to cover the walls in her own home. Except that she just can’t get one right. She continues to throw her discarded doodles on the floor until her mother says, enough is enough.

So Raven stuffs them under her bed. But that night, they start popping up everywhere. She continues to hide them in different places only to have them show up again and again.

It’s up to Raven to embrace her own imperfections and accept her ugly doodles so that she can see them for the masterpieces that they are.

How I Felt:

I thought this book was more than a 5-star children’s book. We’ve now read it like 5 nights in a row for bedtime because my daughter can’t get enough of it!

The character, Raven, is just adorable. She’s determined and ambitious, and I found that to be endearing, and something to inspire young readers. She’s also slightly hilarious. Her attitude and approach to her reappearing doodle problem had my daughter and I giggling over and over. Raven is a delightful character, and I would really love to see more of her in future books.

The illustrations are stunning. I love Raven’s beautiful curly hair and her big bright eyes. She’s just so lovely to look at. The care the was put into each page is so obvious, and it pays off. Even the doodles are something to stop and look at. It’s a wonderful work of art on each page.

The plot was perfect, and a little spooky at times, to be honest! I really enjoyed the creepy twist that was put into this story. It’s not enough to scare any littles that are reading this fabulous book with you, it’s just enough that you, as an adult, know that this could be spooky.

Outside of the little spooky story, the idea of Raven trying desperately to get rid of her art because it isn’t good enough was a great plot. I loved all her ideas to make them just go away, but I really enjoyed her realization that she could fix these doodles and they would be wonderful.

Overall, I obviously really loved this story. I thought it was a captivating story that will keep young readers delighted again and again!

To Read or Not To Read:

I would recommend The Ugly Doodles for all children from early pre-K through middle elementary school!

Where to Find This Book:

The Ugly Doodles by Valeria Wicker is available at these sites.

Bookshop.org | Amazon Kindle | Amazon | Goodreads

This hilarious and adorable picture book about creativity, fear of failure, and embracing your imperfections is perfect for kids and budding artists of all ages.

After an inspiring visit to the local art museum, Raven Rembrandt is eager to create her own beautiful masterpieces. But the only thing she can seem to draw are ugly doodles — and they won’t go away, no matter how hard she tries to discard them! After a few increasingly inventive attempts to get rid of them, Raven realizes that the only way to learn to love her art is to just create.

Valeria Wicker’s endearing and quirky art style adds humor to her sweet and whimsical story about overcoming a fear of imperfection and failure.

Just the Facts:

The Ugly Doodles by Valeria Wicker
Genre: Children’s
Page Count: 32 pages
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson
Pub Date: July 7, 2020

I was provided an advanced reader’s copy of this book for free. I am leaving my review voluntarily.

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