A book I highly recommend for its imperfections: A review of “I Am Not a Perfect Child”

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The author, Jim­my Liao, calls this an imper­fect book. And he’s right! For exam­ple, the title alone sug­gests it’s imper­fect, at least not par­tic­u­lar­ly inspir­ing. Fur­ther­more, if you con­sid­er it a book for chil­dren, you’ll find nei­ther exten­sive knowl­edge nor moral prin­ci­ples, not even addi­tion, sub­trac­tion, mul­ti­pli­ca­tion, and divi­sion! This clear­ly demon­strates its imper­fec­tions.

 
  How­ev­er, read­ers famil­iar with Jim­my Liao’s works will prob­a­bly agree that com­pared with his famous imper­fect works, such as “The Secret of the For­est”, “The Moon For­got”, “For­est Singing”, “Sub­way”, “Turn Left, Turn Right”, etc., this new work is not infe­ri­or at all, and even has new break­throughs in some aspects, espe­cial­ly in terms of chil­dren’s per­spec­tive and chil­dren’s inter­est.

 
  The pro­tag­o­nist of this book is named “Hao Wan­mei,” a third-grade stu­dent. Her par­ents, hav­ing giv­en her that name, clear­ly had high hopes for her. When she was lit­tle, she seemed tru­ly per­fect. But as she grew old­er, things changed. At school, some class­mates delib­er­ate­ly called her “Hao Wan­dan” or “Hao Niang­mei,” and com­plain­ing to the teacher proved futile. This was­n’t a big deal; she could just find per­fect nick­names to return the favor. But the most dif­fi­cult part was the increas­ing demands from her par­ents and the increas­ing­ly strin­gent school stan­dards. Hao Wan­mei felt increas­ing­ly exhaust­ed, want­i­ng to cry out: “I’m not a per­fect kid any­more!”

 
  Jim­my Liao attempts to re-exam­ine those often over­looked frag­ments of life from the per­spec­tive of an ele­men­tary school stu­dent, and at the same time uses an imag­i­nary “per­fect scale” to mea­sure each one: per­fect front, side, and back; per­fect prej­u­dice; per­fect trou­ble; per­fect words; per­fect regret; per­fect assump­tion; per­fect hypoth­e­sis; per­fect imag­i­na­tion… Please note that the “per­fect” here can refer to a com­mon adjec­tive or a noun, such as the name of the lit­tle pro­tag­o­nist. The author plays such word games casu­al­ly in the process of nar­ra­tion. Some­times (occa­sion­al­ly) he means it seri­ous­ly, but most of the time he uses obvi­ous irony. For exam­ple:

“Per­fect adults are chil­dren
 Adults cry poor every day, but they go shop­ping every day.
 Adults com­plain all day long that they don’t have enough time.
 But I spend a lot of time watch­ing TV.
 Adults only care about their chil­dren, but nev­er take care of them­selves.”

 
  Such wit­ty words, cou­pled with Jim­my Liao’s icon­ic and live­ly illus­tra­tions, give the over­all feel­ing very humor­ous and are very easy to read, but if you care­ful­ly con­sid­er the mean­ing, it is often thought-pro­vok­ing.

 
  Amidst the pro­tag­o­nist Hao Wan­mei’s ram­bling self-nar­ra­tion, the author fit­ting­ly weaves in a num­ber of famous quotes on “per­fec­tion.” For exam­ple, Sal­vador Dal­i’s “Don’t be afraid of per­fec­tion, for you can nev­er achieve it,” Maugh­am’s “Per­fec­tion has one major flaw: it’s often bor­ing,” and George Bernard Shaw’s “If the world were per­fect, with­out any prob­lems, would­n’t we have noth­ing to do?” These fig­ures, who rep­re­sent the pin­na­cle of human wis­dom, are equal­ly imper­fect. Their wis­dom lies in acknowl­edg­ing their imper­fec­tions and striv­ing for improve­ment. The book’s final pages even fea­ture a host of imper­fect greats—Leonardo da Vin­ci, Galileo, Mozart, Beethoven, Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen, Marie Curie, Mon­et, Flo­rence Nightin­gale, Edi­son… Their names, when list­ed, shim­mer brighter than the stars in the sky, yet none of them are tru­ly per­fect.

 
  So, in a sense, “I’m Not a Per­fect Kid” is still a very inspi­ra­tional work. It is indeed very suit­able for chil­dren and adults who have giv­en up the pur­suit of per­fec­tion, because in their opin­ion, per­haps truth is more impor­tant than per­fec­tion.

 
  This is a rare book that open­ly declares, “It’s not per­fect!” Yet, amidst so many “imper­fect” books, it’s tru­ly per­fect. With beau­ti­ful illus­tra­tions and text, and play­ful humor, it’s a delight for all ages. And its pro­found mean­ing is tru­ly inspir­ing for chil­dren and adults alike. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed.

Argen­tine Primera División in Bei­jing in March 2012