Ari arranges everything

Ari has always arranged things, first organizing his building blocks as a baby. He loves to stack, organize, and display items to his satisfaction: pillows, toys, and pots and pans. But not everyone appreciates Ari's habit of arranging items in the grocery store and the hardware store; even moving people around in an exercise class doesn't exactly have the satisfying outcome he envisions. One day, Ari decides to create his biggest display yet--he'll assemble the zoo animals in a pyramid. Unfortunately, that attempted organizational feat doesn't end well at all. After the resulting debacle, he begins to witness people having fun in a way he might have once called chaotic, but starts to think might be fun. As he comes to the conclusion that not everything can or should be arranged, Ari finds he feels freer and less anxious. Full-page, saturated color illustrations are heavily detailed and filled with all the myriad items Ari feels compelled to organize. Children will want to closely study the pictures to discover all they contain.

Too much arranging can be a bad thing. Ari, who has brown skin and short, curly black hair, loves to arrange things. This affinity starts out fairly typically with baby Ari artfully stacking blocks but goes goofy as Ari positions fleas on their dog's head. As Ari gets older, they move on to creatively piling items inside their home. Ari starts arranging flowers, leaving no blooms behind for anyone else to deliver to their sweethearts. What starts out as a hobby quickly takes over the whole town as Ari rearranges the market, the hardware store, the pool, and a toy store. Observant readers will note from the expressions on the faces of the diverse townsfolk and the funny dialogue asides that Ari's efforts are not appreciated. Finally, a disastrous arrangement at the zoo clears Ari's tunnel vision, allowing them to take a moment to focus on the beauty in the uncontrollable, like the clouds in the sky and the frantic fun of a neighborhood cookout. While Ari still loves to arrange, they can see the appeal of a little well-timed chaos. Ari does have an obvious organizing compulsion, but the tone of the story imbues it with lightness. Vernon's painterly style beautifully builds Ari's world in a gorgeous wash of colors, creating a joyful space. Overall, it's a sweet, silly reminder that harmless mayhem can be fun. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Arrange your bookshelf to make space for this one. (Picture book. 3-6) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.