Perfectly Pegasus

by Jessie Sima

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

What would it be like to finally find your community? The group that makes you feel special, even on days when you're not feeling so special? Kelp the Unicorn, from Jessie Sima's bestselling Not Quite Narwhal, returns to help Nimbus, a pegasus, find her path to happiness and self-acceptance. Jessie Sima's storytelling and art are like an inspirational, comforting blanket for the soul.

A New York Times bestseller!

A lonely pegasus looks for the perfect friend in this sweet and adorable picture book companion to the bestselling Not Quite Narwhal!

Nimbus has always lived among the clouds. She’s a pegasus, after all, and the sky is where she belongs. She is one of a kind. And when she wants a friend, all she has to do is look up—and talk to the stars.

Only...they don’t really talk back. The clouds don’t, either. And sometimes, being the only pegasus can be a little...lonely? So she decides to find a fallen star to make a wish on—and wishes for friends who are just like her. Along the way she meets a Unicorn named Kelp, and a host of other creatures...who might just open her eyes to something other than what’s up in the sky.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781534497177
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Publication date:	03/29/2022
Series:	Not Quite Narwhal and Friends
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	80,658
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	AD550L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Jessie Sima is an author/illustrator living and working in New York City. They grew up in a small town in southern New Jersey, unaware that they were a storyteller. Once they figured it out, they told their family and friends, who took it quite well. They are the author of Not Quite Narwhal; Harriet Gets Carried Away; Love, Z; Snow Pony and the Seven Miniature Ponies; Spencer’s New Pet; Jules vs. the Ocean; Hardly Haunted; and Weather Together. You can visit them at JessieSima.com.

Editorial Reviews

01/17/2022

In Sima’s version of a crossover episode, Nimbus, the titular pegasus—who has purply blue wings and an aviator’s cap to match—meets Kelp, the unicorn protagonist of 2017’s Not Quite Narwhal. Nimbus, whose outlier status in the sometimes “too empty” sky corresponds to Kelp’s underwater backstory, has pursued a falling star to an island in hopes that wishing on it will bring about “someone to keep her company.” Kelp, whom Nimbus discovers standing sweetly in a meadow surrounded by butterflies and flowers, can’t find the star either. The two nevertheless revel in each other’s company (Nimbus flies in the rainbow generated by Kelp’s horn), and when Kelp introduces Nimbus to his congenial beachfront community of narwhals and unicorns, readers may find themselves shouting out, “Here are the friends you’re looking for!” Nimbus, however, wings all the way back to the heavens before realizing that she doesn’t need to find the star itself to “finish her wish.” If the resolution feels a titch lengthy, Sima rewards the audience with a great party ending: under starry skies, all the creatures—horned, mythical, and otherwise—gather for a truly adorable campfire event, replete with stargazing. Ages 4–8. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Charming digital illustrations and the heartwarming tale of friendship—not to mention unicorns—will keep very young children entertained.

— Maryann Owen

2/15/22 - Booklist

04/22/2022

PreS-Gr 3—In a companion title to Sima's Not Quite Narwhal, Nimbus soars among the stars, a Pegasus among the constellations who makes wishes for a friend upon every falling star she sees. One night she follows the path of a star all the way to an island where she meets Kelp, the unicorn, and all his pointy friends. They help her to look for the fallen star, and she has enough fun that when it's time to return to the skies, she knows she will miss them. But her need to find the kind of friend she has in mind is so strong that she goes home anyway. Even the youngest reader will be on track for what happens next; Nimbus realizes who her real friends are. This is a reassuring follow-up to the first book and just as generous and inclusive. Sima's "pointy" creatures are adorable, helping create a warm and welcoming environment for Nimbus, and children will love figuring out just what they are, or are not. VERDICT An easy purchase, sure to find a place next to its popular forerunner, that makes the night skies just a little bit friendlier.—Kimberly Olson Fakih

School Library Journal