In the Moment: I'm Worried by Michael Ian Black

Who knew potatoes have anxiety attacks?

Girl and Flamingo are drawn from their basketball game in surprise. WHY?

"Because what if something bad happens?" Potato moans.

ANYTHING is possible in the future, right?

Potato conjures up images of malevolent squirrels, lava-spouting volcanoes, meteor strikes, alien invasions, pop tests, evil clowns, T. Rexes on the rampage.... Yikes!

The girl admits that she can't promise bad things won't happen. Nobody knows that they won't.

Now Flamingo is really worried.

The two recall that time Potato got a booboo when the cat pushed him off the table. Ouch!

And then there was the time Flamingo got his beak stuck in the peanut butter jar. Not pretty.

How about the time the girl fell from the climbing bar and got a broken arm? But then, she reminds the two nervous Nellies, she got a scratch-and-sniff sticker from the doctor and Potato and Flamingo drew cool doodles all over the cast! It wasn't all bad!!

Still Flamingo and Potato are fearful. The two wrap themselves in protective bubble wrap. Better safe than sorry, right? But extreme security protocols have their problems, too!

"It's getting hot in here!" says Potato.

"I can't move," complains Flamingo.

Well, then.... All that worrying didn't really help, did it? the girl points out!

See? Maybe the most sensible thing is just to enjoy the moment, advises the sage girl, in Michael Ian Black's hilarious worry wart picture book, I'm Worried (The I'm Books) (Simon and Schuster, 2019). Enjoying the good times (while perhaps keeping your beak out of peanut butter jars) is the upbeat message of this one in Black's I'm series, assisted ably by artist Debbie Ridpath Ohl's clever and comic blackline drawings.

Share this one with Todd Parr's The Don't Worry Book and Caldecott winner Kevin Henkes' best-selling classic,  Wemberly Worried.