Beautiful Oops!

A life lesson that all parents want their children to learn: It’s OK to make a mistake. In fact, hooray for mistakes! A mistake is an adventure in creativity, a portal of discovery. A spill doesn’t ruin a drawing—not when it becomes the shape of a goofy animal. And an accidental tear in your paper? Don’t be upset about it when you can turn it into the roaring mouth of an alligator.

Barney Saltzberg, the effervescent spirit behind Good Egg, offers a one-of-a-kind interactive book that shows young readers how every mistake is an opportunity to make something beautiful. A singular work of imagination, creativity, and paper engineering, Beautiful Oops! is filled with pop-ups, lift-the-flaps, tears, holes, overlays, bends, smudges, and even an accordion “telescope”—each demonstrating the magical transformation from blunder to wonder.

The smudge becomes the face of a bunny, a crumpled ball of paper turns into a lamb’s fleecy coat—celebrate the oops in life.

A life lesson that all parents want their children to learn: It’s OK to make a mistake. In fact, hooray for mistakes! A mistake is an adventure in creativity, a portal of discovery. A spill doesn’t ruin a drawing—not when it becomes the shape of a goofy animal. And an accidental tear in your paper? Don’t be upset about it when you can turn it into the roaring mouth of an alligator.

Barney Saltzberg, the effervescent spirit behind Good Egg, offers a one-of-a-kind interactive book that shows young readers how every mistake is an opportunity to make something beautiful. A singular work of imagination, creativity, and paper engineering, Beautiful Oops! is filled with pop-ups, lift-the-flaps, tears, holes, overlays, bends, smudges, and even an accordion “telescope”—each demonstrating the magical transformation from blunder to wonder.

The smudge becomes the face of a bunny, a crumpled ball of paper turns into a lamb’s fleecy coat—celebrate the oops in life.

Publishers Weekly

A celebration of creative thinking, Saltzberg's small-format book encourages readers to view mistakes not as failures but opportunities. To wit, "A torn piece of paper..." (the cardboard page is actually torn) "is just the beginning": the beginning of a smile for an alligator. Various spills and blobs are transformed into animals, a crumpled piece of paper becomes wool for a sheep, and in the book's standout scene, a panel with a hole in the center telescopes outward, accordion-style, to reveal a tiny creature way at the bottom. Inspirational without being saccharine, this has gifty crossover potential. Ages 3 up. (Oct.)

Barney Saltzberg is the author of more than 30 books for children, including Good Egg and the bestselling Touch and Feel Kisses series, with over 800,000 copies in print. Additionally, he’s recorded four albums of songs for children. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, two dogs, and a pond full of fish.