Matt de la Peña on ‘The Perfect Place’

A podcast interview with Matt de la Peña discussing The Perfect Place on The Growing Readers Podcast, a production of The Children’s Book Review.

Award-winning author Matt de la Peña discusses his new picture book, The Perfect Place, exploring themes of class, self-acceptance, and the meaning of home.

In this captivating episode, Matt takes us on a journey through the heart of his story. Listen as he shares the personal experiences that inspired this touching tale, offering a glimpse into his creative process. You’ll be treated to a special reading from the book, bringing the words to life in Matt’s own voice.

Matt reflects on how The Perfect Place resonates with readers of all ages, challenging our perceptions of perfection and success. This conversation delves deep into the power of children’s literature to shape our understanding of family, belonging, and the beauty found in life’s imperfections.

Whether you’re a parent, educator, book lover, or simply someone in search of a little inspiration, this episode promises insights that will stay with you long after the last page is turned. Join us for a thoughtful exploration of what it means to find your perfect place in an imperfect world.

Matt de la Peña Talks About:

• Exploring themes of class differences and self-acceptance in The Perfect Place
• Reflecting on personal college experiences as inspiration for the story
• Illustrating the concept of “code-switching” between different environments
• Discovering beauty in imperfections and flawed characters
• Highlighting the pressure of perfectionism in academic settings
• Emphasizing the importance of bilingual book releases
• Celebrating multi-generational families and diverse home environments
• Challenging societal narratives about success and self-worth
• Recognizing the universal appeal of the book’s message across age groups

Listen to the Episode

Listen to the Episode

Bianca Schulze: Hi, Matt. Welcome back to The Growing Readers podcast.

Matt de la Peña: Hi, Bianca. It’s such a pleasure to be here again.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, I had such a great time talking with you and Corrina about Patchwork, so I really wanted to say that upfront because if anybody hasn’t listened to that episode, I felt like both of you shared so much wisdom in what it takes to craft a picture book and also just, I mean, the beautiful little life nugget of wisdom. So I want everybody to go back and listen to that episode if they haven’t.

Matt de la Peña: I know Corrina—she’s such a thoughtful creator. What am I going to do without her right now?

Bianca Schulze: You’re going to thrive. You’re going to thrive. Well, I really want to dive right into the book today, so I would love for you to share with our listeners a brief overview of your beautiful upcoming picture book, The Perfect Place. And I’d love to know what or who inspired you to delve into this particular narrative. So I’m hoping you can also share any personal anecdotes or maybe experiences that influenced the emotional depth that this story has.

Matt de la Peña: Sure. So The Perfect Place is about a little boy named Lucas who goes to a very fancy private school, and it’s hard for him because he has to switch gears or he has to switch codes, I should say, from going from his home environment to the school environment. He has to almost become a different version of himself. And I think he’s starting to fantasize about, what if I could just only be in this kind of fancy code? What if this was just my life? And he’s starting to excel at the school. So when he gets this incredible score on this robot report, he thinks, hey, maybe I actually belong here. Maybe this is my true space that I should inhabit.

And so he goes home and he has this strange experience where this light leads him out of his apartment, down the fire escape, and down these streets into the nicer neighborhood where there’s this fantastical place called the perfect place. And once he’s there, it really does feel like this is where he belongs. But while he’s there, he’s starting to notice things might be a little different from what he had expected. And especially when he sees a boy spill a little bit of orange juice, which this boy eerily looks a lot like him, he’s kind of shunned and has to retreat out of the perfect place. And this is the first time that I think Lucas sees this place as flawed. And then he starts to think about, well, what does that mean? This idea of something being flawed. And I wonder if the flaws where I live are any worse than the flaws in this perfect place.

And so he follows the light back home, and it turns out this light is his mom coming home from work and shining her flashlight on his robot report.

And then where did it come from? So, yeah, that’s interesting. I think I drew a lot on my college experience. You know, I think when I was young, nobody in my family had ever been to college. And I used to think, well, this is the ultimate, is to get to college. And now I’ll be among the people who are, you know, the people who sort of mold the nation, you know, the future of the country. And when I got there, it was an incredible experience, the best experience of my life. But I also saw that these people who I was interacting with, they weren’t better than the people that I grew up with. They were just different. And that’s like a huge lesson that I think most kids from working-class communities have to reckon with. It’s the fact that we have been told that success is getting to these certain places, but once you get there, if you’re lucky enough to get there, you realize that it’s not better than where you were before. It’s just different.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Yeah. Well, The Perfect Place, as you’ve kind of touched on, explores themes of class differences and also the beauty of families that are rich in love. So could you elaborate on Lucas’s family and how these themes of class and richness in love play out in the story?

Matt de la Peña: Sure. Yeah. So I think he has an incredibly close family and they all live together. It’s a multi-generational house and it’s cramped. And he’s probably going to school with kids who have their own room and have a nice big bed and very fancy decor. So he’s not sure. We sometimes are blind to what is in front of us because it’s in front of us every day. So sometimes it takes moving away, even if it’s just in a dream space, to be able to really see who’s around you or what your context is. And I think that’s probably the biggest journey for Lucas in the book, is that he’s moved away from his space in order to better see it.

Once he wakes up and he looks at his family and he sees the imperfections differently. Now, in his house, he sees the chipped paint on the walls, but more importantly, he sees that his family’s all there, gathered in the room. His mom’s makeup is a bit smudged because she had the overnight shift, but he sees the beauty of his family. And I think, for me, that’s the most important story beat of this book, is really being able to see what’s been in front of you your whole life.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Amazing. Well, Lucas initially seeks perfection in his life, but he discovers the beauty in imperfections. So how do you hope readers, particularly children, will connect with the message of finding beauty in imperfection? And can you speak to the broader message about self-acceptance and how it may resonate with children that deal with perfectionism?

Matt de la Peña: Yeah. So that’s an interesting question, because I think if I take the case of me and my daughter, we have different relationships, or at least when I was a kid and watching her grow up, we have different perceptions of what perfectionism is. So for her, she’s in a beautiful school, amazing school, all these high-achieving kids, and she wants to be a perfect student like the people around her. For me, it was different because I went to, you know, a super working-class school down by the Mexican border, and for me, I didn’t see, you know, kids achieving perfection. So it would be… I would be one of… one of one, you know, if I got to perfection, whereas she would be one of almost 100%.

So I think we have a different relationship with what it means to be perfect. And my hope is that this story can be something different depending on what environment you’re growing up in. I think my favorite books, my favorite picture books, there’s a lot of room to understand the story. And this book in particular, I remember I finished it, and I was like, I’m not exactly sure what it’s really about. I just know that these are important questions that I wanted to ask, and I hope that different groups of kids will have their own understanding of what the story is depending on their life experience.

So my daughter, she might see the book and recognize herself going to this fancy school, whereas somebody like me, if I got a hold of this book growing up, it would almost be like I was a voyeur in this experience that I had no access to, and I could watch it almost trying to put myself into the shoes of a kid like Lucas who had this opportunity, which I never had when I was growing up. So, yeah, it’s hard to really pinpoint what this book is in terms of message, and then just more in a general way, I would just say I do love books that ask interesting questions rather than sort of provide an answer.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, absolutely. I’m always here for a discussion book—at the end there’s stuff to talk about. And also, I’ve said this so many times on this podcast. I just love to be left with a feeling, and it doesn’t even need to be a happy feeling, or it just has to be a feeling. And as long as I’m left with a feeling and there’s some sort of profoundness where I am wanting to ask more questions. Those are my favorite books.

Matt de la Peña: That’s such a great way to put it. What I try to write is a feeling, not a message.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so Lucas is navigating both the perfection at school and the imperfections at home. And so late at night, he follows that strange light that takes him beyond his house and the neighborhood. So could you elaborate on the significance of the concept of light that leads him to the perfect place?

Matt de la Peña: Yeah, I think the illustrator Paola, she did such a great job kind of highlighting that idea of the light. I think we do, as a country, have this perception that the more upper middle-class neighborhoods are the light. That’s what we’re trying to get out of the darkness into the light. And I guess I kind of wanted to challenge that, you know, I think, who made up that narrative? You know, like, that’s such an American idea. And, you know, also being somebody who, in all honesty, I never thought I could make it, whatever that means. Make it.

I grew up playing basketball. That’s how I got to college. That was my world. I played pickup basketball in these dingy gyms with these guys who didn’t have regular jobs and did some shady things to make a living. And that was my world. That’s where I learned the world. And I still, even though I loved that space, I thought, well, the promised land or the perfect place is that fancy upper middle-class suburban neighborhood. I tried so hard to get there and kind of like going to the writing world. I always thought, God, if I could ever publish a book and be like those published authors, that would be such a miracle. Like, would they ever let somebody like me in? And then you get there and you just go, oh, wow, this is just the same as every other place. It’s no better, no worse.

Matt de la Peña: It’s just somehow there’s a narrative that exists that we should try to strive for the quote, unquote light. So I think the book is sort of showing the narrative that exists that kids grow up underneath and then kind of challenging what that means. And I think I love picture books that don’t try to have too big of an arc. You know, it’s not this grand turn of events or a character, like, realizes something important that’s going to stick forever. I think it’s like an incremental movement to something new. And for Lucas, he sees what’s going on in this place of success and thinks, oh, gosh, maybe this isn’t where I want to stay either. And kind of goes back and sees his context a little bit differently. And even though it might be a darker, dingy building, I guess the… The human light that’s in the place he’s starting to recognize.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. There’s so many different little pockets of things you said in there that I want to know more about. I was, like, imagining a Matt de la Peña biopic where we get to learn about the shady Matt.

Matt de la Peña: Oh, totally, totally.

Bianca Schulze: And then the idea of… I do like the idea of when you’re feeling that moment of darkness to look for the light. Like, I think that’s important, but I think the part that you’re touching on is so special in that, like, sometimes we put so much hope into what that light carries that it can be disappointing. And I think that’s the little part that you… That nuance that you’ve been able to capture in this book.

Matt de la Peña: Yeah. You know, it reminds me of, like, when you play a video game and you’re trying so hard to win the game, and it’s like you’re playing all these hours and working so hard and figuring things out, and then you win and you have this feeling of emptiness. And the emptiness is that, you know, winning wasn’t the point of the whole thing. It was just, like, learning and growing as a player. So I just feel like that’s the way life is. We set these goals, and sometimes achieving the goal can feel slightly empty and we’re dissatisfied with it. But maybe that’s because the whole point isn’t the arrival. It’s kind of figuring out how to do it along the way.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, well, you mentioned Paola Escobar’s illustrations, which are just so rich in color, and they have that really inviting, almost retro feel. So are there any specific details in the illustrations that you felt particularly brought the story to life?

Matt de la Peña: Oh, my gosh. I love what she did with the perfect place. It truly feels, like, sparkling. And I see the awe on Lucas’s face when he arrives, and that’s exactly the way I had imagined it. As I was writing him getting to that place, crossing the threshold of his mundane, ordinary life into this quote, unquote, perfect place. And, you know, some readers might recognize that there is a flip going on between, or I should say that there’s a… How would I say this? My son would call it a switcheroo. He’s five. But I, you know, I’m kind of interested in the Where the Wild Things Are structure. Right. The little boy, he kind of gets in trouble. He has to go to bed without his dinner, and he journeys to where the wild things are. And I was, one of the things that I thought about when I was beginning to write this book is I was like, well, what about the kids who live where the wild things are? I wonder if any of them want to journey to Max’s household where it’s calm and clean and safe, and I wonder if they’d want to stay there. And so I think she really did a great job of, like, showing through texture and light the difference between those two settings.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, for sure. All right, well, I am curious when, you know that moment as a picture book author, when you see the artwork for the first time.

Matt de la Peña: Yes.

Bianca Schulze: Do you recall that moment, and when you did your first read through, looking at the artwork, was there, like, something that surprised you, that you didn’t expect?

Matt de la Peña: Yeah, I think it was the way she made the arches look that led into the perfect place. And… And I guess I, you know, as a writer, sometimes I don’t think visually as much. I think about the movement of the characters, but I don’t think about the setting as much. So I just loved how populated she made the setting, the sort of dingy building that Lucas lives in. I loved all the stuff happening around it, and I always think the best illustrators, you know, they don’t just sort of, like, underscore the story. Right. They bring something new to it. And I thought she really did with those two settings. So there are all these setting details that I had not imagined. Also, this is an illustrator who I still, to this day, have never met, and I’ve never worked with someone who wasn’t my kind of my friend. So that was kind of interesting. I, of course, knew her work, but I had never had a conversation with her or didn’t know what was exciting to her as a creator. So it almost made the surprise even more profound, because I just didn’t know what to expect.

Bianca Schulze: That’s so fun. Well, so now I want to know how the pairing actually came. So was it like, a suggestion from your editor? How did that work?

Matt de la Peña: Yeah, this is an illustrator I’ve always been kind of following, and I didn’t know if I’d ever get a chance to work with her, but I’ve always kind of thrown her name out there when talking to my editor. And, yeah, they jumped on this one and really wanted us to be paired together to see what would happen. And it’s super exciting. Yeah.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. That’s fun. All right, let me see what I’m going to ask you next. Matt. I’m okay. All right, here’s the question I want to ask. So are there any specific moments or scenes in the book and it can be words or art that holds a particular significance for you?

Matt de la Peña: Yeah, 100%. So when Lucas gets home, he has this strange interaction with his grandfather. And actually, this kind of ties back to the art, too. So he’s sitting there. He wants to show somebody how he did on his report. So he wants validation for his work. Right. And he first can’t get it from his mom because she’s rushing to work. He can’t get it from his dad because his car breaks down. So now he’s looking to his grandfather, and his grandfather’s playing a really, really sad song. And he’s playing out on the balcony or the fire escape, I should say. And he, you know, he says, like, why do you always play sad songs if it makes you upset? And his grandfather says this very strange thing, like some wise grandfathers can, you know, they always tell you we should look for happiness. But sometimes I search for the right type of unhappiness.

And this is so confusing to Lucas, and it’s confusing to me. What does that mean? It’s like an intriguing thought. And at that moment, Lucas doesn’t know what to do with it, and he moves on. And I think this is my favorite spot in the book just because I think that’s what childhood is. You take so many things in, you don’t know what to do with them right away, but they don’t go away. They’re inside of you. And eventually they might come out in some different way as part of you. And that’s what happens at the end of the book when he sort of echoes what his grandfather said, but he kind of uses the word perfect and imperfect as a way to do that. So I think that moment was really interesting.

Now, the surprise from the illustrator Paola, is there’s a picture on his, near his bed, the grandfather’s bed, because you can kind of see his bedroom of probably his late wife, maybe Lucas’s grandmother, who maybe is no longer with us. And it leads us to think, well, maybe it’s her birthday, and he’s sort of just thinking about her. I had never considered that in the text. I just thought, this is a grandfather who plays sad songs a lot, but I love that. I love that reading of that moment. So it gives it this extra detail that a reader can kind of look at and pick apart.

Bianca Schulze: Yes. So when it comes to a picture book, you know, we think of maybe a kid sitting there with a stack of picture books scattered around them, you know, flipping through the pages. Some are just looking at the pictures. Some are able to read the words, but we also think of a caregiver snuggled up with their kid, you know, hopefully somewhere cozy and reading it together.

And so I like to think of most picture books having a level of story that resonates with the child but also a level of story that resonates with the adult reading with them. And so I loved the elements of, you know, the… The mishaps that happen with the dad and the truck and the grandpa singing the sad songs. I love a good sad song. I don’t have to work night shift. I’m privileged in that way, but I work a lot. And that… That moment where the mom can’t read Lucas’s report and has to go to work, like, oh, that pulled at my heartstrings, and I had to remind myself, you know what? It’s okay. It’s okay. Like, I have to work. We need a roof over our head. We need food to eat, you know, and it’s just in the… You know, I love that the mom just seemed happy, you know, like, this was… Maybe she wouldn’t want to work night shift, but she… This is her life, and, you know, she had a smile on her face left.

Anyway, I just… These moments, I feel like, really will resonate with adults that choose to sit and read the…

Matt de la Peña: Yeah, I feel the same way. Like, when I read picture books with my… My kids. I love when I’m laughing at one thing and they’re laughing at another thing, you know, I feel like they’re the best. Picture books have multiple entry points. You know, there’s something with an adult sensibility that sometimes kids find, too, especially upon multiple readings. But I love to be entertained, too. I mean, I got to tell you, reading Goodnight Moon, I watch my kids take the story in one way, and I’m always stuck on that “goodnight nobody.” It’s like, what does that mean? You know? And… And I love just sitting in that confusion and that mystery. And so I hope that, you know, as a creator, like, myself, whatever illustrator I’m working with, we can create those moments of mystery, too, because they’re so fun. That’s what brings you back to the book.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Now, I, like, totally went to Goodnight Moon and I know rabbit in the rocking chair, you know?

Matt de la Peña: Yeah. What’s going on there? The creepy rabbit.

Bianca Schulze: Well, I won’t say I related to the rabbit now because that makes me creepy. Okay. All right. Well, I… You know, you touched on the moment of the grandfather being kind of a significant moment for you. Is there a section that you would want to read? It could be the grandpa part or a different part.

Matt de la Peña: Okay, yeah, let me… Let me find the part. Here. Okay. Yeah, I know the exact part that I would like to read. Okay.

Baby Gabbi was sound asleep in their bedroom. Lucas tiptoed past her crib to the windowsill, where he kept his small flashlight. He aimed his beam of light at the paint peeling off the walls and the broken dresser drawers before pausing at the orange juice stain on the rug. Then he slumped down on the edge of his mattress and pulled out his robot report. He shined the light on his perfect score. Late that night, a strange light shone in through a crack in the curtains. Lucas sat up, bleary-eyed, still wearing his street clothes. Without thinking, he shrugged off his covers and slipped on his sneakers and climbed down to the alley below. The light led him clear out of his neighborhood, and as Lucas followed, the streets became wider and the trees grew denser. Sagging old apartment buildings gave way to big, bright houses with vast green lawns. When Lucas came upon a towering gate made of gold, he stepped across the threshold into a glorious morning and found himself standing in the place where the perfect people lived.

Bianca Schulze: I love that, Matt. I’m sitting here and I know I’m supposed to be thinking about the themes and whatnot, but all I could think right then is you have this such… Well, a lot of people talk about when you’re writing for children or writing for adults. That you need to show and not tell. And I feel as though that is a perfect example of showing. You could have so easily said, you know, Lucas climbed out of bed, he left his apartment, he walked down the street, and he ended up at the perfect place. But even without Paola’s illustrations, I had a visual of, you know, where he was.

Matt de la Peña: Yeah. I think, like, that movement from his building to the perfect place is very important for me as the storyteller, just because he’s noting, you know, he’s going to this wherever the light’s leading him. But he’s noticing that as he leaves his neighborhood, the houses get bigger, the lawns get bigger, there are more trees, there’s more nature, and he’s just noticing how it’s shifting as he leaves his place. And for me, visually, I love that there’s a bit of awe on his face, and, you know, that, wow, this really is the better place. And that’s what he’s thinking in that moment.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. And on the flip side of the part that you read towards the end of the book, there’s his return home to his old building and the descriptions and the way that you showed that in your words, I feel like that really brought it home. So if anybody kind of was just caught up in the story, as Lucas went to the perfect place, his return home, I feel, was like the icing on the cake. And it just really… It really… It made me stop and really think about the part that you just read.

Matt de la Peña: Yeah, I feel like it’s strange because I connect so much to both of those journeys because I feel like that is my memoir. You know, you are seeing yourself moving to college and then into a profession that you always wanted, and it does seem like you’re leaving something that isn’t as beautiful. And then you get there and you realize, oh, my gosh, I kind of had it wrong. You know, my life was so beautiful even before this. It’s not about where I am. It’s about, you know, my family and my… And my community.

And, you know, it goes back to Last Stop on Market Street, the first picture book I ever did, where I always say that book is about, you have a choice how you see the world. You can see the ugly parts of your neighborhood because they’re there, but you could also, on the flip side, see the beautiful parts of your neighborhood because they’re there as well. And I think that’s kind of the journey of Lucas, and I feel like that, in a bigger way is my journey as just a human being.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Well, I want to point out that there’s actually some really great news that The Perfect Place is releasing simultaneously in Spanish. So how important was it for you to have the book accessible to bilingual and Spanish-speaking audiences? And how do you believe this story translates across different languages?

Matt de la Peña: So I think Penguin, my publisher, Penguin Putnam, I think they’ve done an incredible job of taking every title that I release and publishing it on the same day in Spanish as it’s published in English. So why is that important? Because symbolically, one version of the story in our majority language isn’t more important than the Spanish version, which my character is growing up in that world. Right. So that’s his experience. He’s got Spanish in the house probably as much as English. And so I think, symbolically, it’s saying that this isn’t a story about a Mexican kid for English-speaking audiences only. No, this is about, you know, you can look at it as somebody kind of stepping in to a story and seeing somebody else’s life, you know, somebody who might live in the perfect place, but it’s just as much the story of somebody who speaks Spanish in the house. And my favorite image is that grandfather in the book, you know, some real-life version somewhere, reading it to their Lucas, because I think those conversations, that’s the ones that I would want to listen to, you know, they’re trying to grapple with that idea.

Bianca Schulze: So, as an author, and you’ve touched on this, how do you hope readers connect with Lucas’s journey? And what do you want them to carry with them after experiencing The Perfect Place?

Matt de la Peña: Yeah. So I was listening to this conversation the other day. I write at this little Italian bakery near my house, and I love going here because I put my headphones on when I need to really concentrate. But sometimes I’m just kind of looking for something, looking for the next thing I’m going to do, and I have my headphones on. But like any good stalker, I had the volume turned down, so I can eavesdrop here and there. But I heard this conversation between two parents, and they were parents of high school juniors, and they were both talking about the application process for college. And what I was shocked about is how they were both saying that their two daughters were really struggling with their mental health because they thought if they didn’t get into the college they wanted to get into, then they would be failures. And somehow we have set up this idea in this country that there is failure if you don’t get to go to the chosen college or job.

And I just hope readers who are growing up with that pressure can really look at that and maybe unpack, how did that story come to be? Because all of this is just a story, right? Everything is a story. We tell ourselves that success is this particular college. That’s just a story. So how did that story get embedded in our minds? And so I hope young readers who are going to very great schools, surrounded by really smart kids, I hope they challenge that story before it really gets going, because ideally, this would be a young reader looking at it, and then the kids who feel like they don’t matter as much because they don’t live in a place like the perfect place. I hope they will look at this story where Lucas turns to his family at the end of the story and sees the beautiful imperfections of his family, which, by the way, is what every writer is looking for in story. No perfect character could ever exist in a story because it’s too boring. So I hope they see the beautiful imperfections of their family and their context and their room and their city, and kind of just say, well, gosh, maybe that story that’s telling me that I’m living in a less, a less than life isn’t true.

Bianca Schulze: I wish that was going to have been my last question for you, Matt, because that would have been the most amazing way to finish this episode. I love that. I do have another question for you, but I do want to say, like, yes, ideally, this is a picture book for the younger audience, and hopefully set them up to appreciate the family they have. Or, I mean, I’m not even going to go into it because you just said it so beautifully. But I hadn’t thought of your book as, like, this would be such a beautiful, like, high school senior graduation gift, because here you’re about to go off to what you may think of as the perfect place. But it’s gonna be hard. There’s gonna be these moments where you struggle and to remember that your family is still there backing you, hopefully behind you, you know? Such a beautiful message, too. So I’m calling this as a graduation gift, too.

Matt de la Peña: I think that that works for me.

Bianca Schulze: Okay, let’s see. All right, well, I do like to give you the opportunity. If there’s anything that we haven’t touched on that you want to add about the book or if there’s one specific thing we spoke about that you want to re-highlight, to leave everybody with, now’s your moment.

Matt de la Peña: Okay. Well, you know, the book is focused on Lucas, and, you know, we’re following his story and his journey, and ultimately, he’s surrounded by family at the end. And, you know, sometimes I do think about those other kids, you know, the kids that are at his school and that are still in the perfect place. And I, as a child, had no access to the pressure they’re under. It’s tremendous. I used to think I didn’t have as big of a life as some of the kids in the fancier neighborhoods, and therefore, they were the lucky ones. But then you get to your version of the perfect place, college, whatever job you have, and you get to talk to kids who have been there their whole lives, and you just realize the tremendous pressure they’re under. So I guess I hope that some readers look at Lucas’s story, but also consider the kids that are still in the perfect place at the end of the book, because their lives are beautiful, too, and they’re under this incredible pressure. And the paint peeling off of their walls isn’t the same as Lucas’s, but it’s still there.

Bianca Schulze: So. Well said. Well, Matt, it’s clear to me that The Perfect Place isn’t just about finding beauty in imperfection. It’s about celebrating the richness of love, kindness, and self-acceptance. And between your lyrical writing and the vibrant illustrations of Paola Escobar, you have crafted a tale that will resonate deeply with readers of all ages, reminding us that the true perfection lies not in flawless exteriors, but in the imperfect yet beautiful tapestry of our lives. And The Perfect Place isn’t just a book. It’s a heartfelt reminder to appreciate the imperfect moments that make life truly perfect. So thank you for writing it, and thank you for being on the show.

Matt de la Peña: Oh, such a pleasure. Thanks for having me again.

Show Notes

Matt de la Peña is the Newbery Medal-winning author of Last Stop on Market Street. He is also the author of the award-winning picture books Patchwork, Milo Imagines the World, Carmela Full of Wishes, Love, and A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis, as well as a number of critically acclaimed young adult novels. Matt teaches creative writing and visits schools and colleges throughout the country.

Order Copies: The Perfect Place on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠. El lugar perfecto (Spanish Edition) on ⁠Amazon⁠ and ⁠Bookshop.org⁠.

Resources: You can visit Matt at ⁠mattdelapena.com⁠ or follow him on Twitter and Instagram @mattdelapena.

Thank you for listening to the Growing Readers Podcast episode Finding Beauty in Imperfection: Matt de la Peña on ‘The Perfect Place’. For the latest episodes from The Growing Readers Podcast, Subscribe or Follow Now.