You Need Pants!

Written by Sonya Bell

Illustrated by Jordan Wray

Scholastic Canada

978-1-0397-0563-0

24 pp.

Ages 3–8

July 2025 

 

This child is all in for a wealth of adventures. But first their parent has to get them dressed, and that may be greatest of all undertakings.

From You Need Pants!, written by Sonya Bell, illustrated by Jordan Wray

For this little one, each day is a "new day full of silliness and dirt." (p. 3)  His mom, the narrator of the story and a peripheral character in an orange jumpsuit, reminds him of all the things he can do, but first they have to get him dressed. For each piece of clothing he needs—shirt, pants, socks, shoes, coat, hat—she points out, in rhyming text, what fun he can have. 

You can hop, skip and jump

as you march with the ants!

 

You'll sing as you go—

so let's find you some pants.

From You Need Pants!, written by Sonya Bell, illustrated by Jordan Wray

On each double-spread illustration, courtesy of Vancouver's Jordan Wray, the child's imaginative adventure is set against the reality of the play. A flight on a rainbow is actually him drawing at the breakfast table, while his mom holds up a sock to put on. A voyage on a pirate ship seeking lost treasure is him balancing on a pillow with a sword and paper pirate hat alongside a whale stuffie and a toy ship. This time, his mom attempts to get him into his coat. But to have all these fantastic exploits, he must get dressed. 

From You Need Pants!, written by Sonya Bell, illustrated by Jordan Wray

When he's finally dressed and heading out the door, having taken to the stage with the dog and cat playing back up, his mom realizes she has missed something crucial. Oh dear.

 

I can see why Sonya Bell is considered a humorist as well as a writer. You Need Pants! is a cheeky look at getting a child dressed but its ending gives readers a punchline that is convincing, silly, and yet familiar to anyone—parent, teacher, caregiver—who has needed to dress a child. Sonya Bell whose impressive career has included roles as a journalist, a speech writer and a joke writer on This Hour Has 22 Minutes knows how to deliver the laughs but embed it in a context that is appropriate for her audience. Children will love this kid who is so happy and carefree, imagining wonderful scenarios of travel and accomplishment, but laugh at his mom who is desperately chasing him around the house and encouraging him to put on just one more piece of clothing. They'll especially enjoy the ending when it's her misstep that will undo all that hard work. 

From You Need Pants!, written by Sonya Bell, illustrated by Jordan Wray

The playfulness that Sonya Bell portrays in her rhyming text—"You can build a huge tree fort with million-dollar views. You're a tiny homeowner! Oh no! Where are your shoes?"—comes across in Jordan Wray's digital illustrations. They have drawn this child as happy and creative, making a city with a firetruck all out of boxes, imagining sliding with penguins on an iceberg of a slippery rug, and going on a hike through a jungle with his stuffed monkey among the potted houseplants. There's colour everywhere and joy both in the child's imagination and in the house. Nothing is without the zest of personality, from the child's dinosaur PJs to his mom's stylish bibbed overalls, hoop earrings, and headscarf-tied afro. This mom may be frazzled but maybe not—the child doesn't seem anything but content—and yet Jordan Wray makes their story one of liveliness and pleasure and even accomplishment.

 

That effort may be short-lived—you'll see when you read the story—but Sonya Bell and Jordan Wray take us through the process of getting a small child dressed for the day and let us see it from two perspectives. The operation may be exasperating, and it certainly is straggling, but it is fun. And the kid will be fully dressed when he finally gets to leave the house. What more could a parent ask for?