The Picture of Morty and Ray By Daniel Pinkwater and Jack E. Davis

This picture book is about two young friends, Morty and Ray, who stay up late one night to watch a late movie. This movie was about a handsome man who got his picture painted but for every bad thing he did, his picture turned ugly. Accordingly, Morty and Ray paint a picture of themselves and start doing bad things to their friends. For every name the two friends say, or every push they complete, their picture get uglier. This book sends the message that even though you can be beautiful on the outside, doing horrible things to others can make you ugly on the inside. I also like that their friendship remained after all the problems they faced. These children figured out on their own doing mean things to their friends was wrong and apologized. I also love the illustrations in this book. The illustrator used a unique black and white versus color contrasts that really made the message come alive.