Getting There Is Half the Fun! On My Way to School by Sarah Maizes

"GOOD MORNING! LIVI! TIME TO GET READY FOR SCHOOL!"

That's not good news for Livi! Or for her long-suffering mom, who has to prompt her dawdling daughter at every step along the way.

The princess of procrastination is especially hard to get on track on school mornings.

"SCHOOL IS FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED TO LEARN STUFF.

I HAVE GONE TO SCHOOL A HUNDRED TIMES AND I ALREADY KNOW LOTS OF STUFF."

Livi oozes out of bed, being a slimy snail. Just digging some underwear out of the bureau becomes a pirate expedition for buried treasure, fighting off scalawags with a few YAARRGGs along the way.

"COME EAT BREAKFAST!!!!"

Finally in the kitchen Livi mentally morphs into a master chef, concocting amazing chocolate-chip pancakes, as her mother warns that her cereal is in dire danger of becoming soggy.

Upstairs again to brush her teeth, Livi becomes an elephant matriarch, shouldering lesser animals away from her water hole, and when she loads her stuff in her backpack, she suddenly sees herself as as sturdy Sherpa, a powerful porter schlepping her boss's gear up the slopes of Mt. Everest.

"THE BUS IS HERE, LIVI!"

Amazingly Livi makes it through the swooshy doors of the bus to become a stalwart pioneer woman at the reins of a dusty covered wagon on the Oregon Trail. And when she dismounts from her wagon in front of the school, she slips instantly into the role of the glamorous starlet, smiling for the papparazzi and sashaying down the red carpet with a wave to her fans for the grand premier of her movie.

A lollapalooza of a lollygagger, our Livi turns every prosaic moment in her day into a potential procrastination,  but also a chance to live lots of different lives along the way. Expeditious she's not, but adventurous and imaginative she is, in Sarah Maizes' latest On My Way story, On My Way to School (Walker Press, 2014).  Again Michael Paraskevas' jolly comic illustrations capture the mercurial fancy of a main character whose internal life is full invention and variety.

Dillydalliers unite. Your numbers are legion, and Livi is your Queen!

Other books in the series are On My Way to the Bath and On My Way to Bed. (see reviews here).