An annual event in every elementary-school classroom is the taking of the group portrait. Here, the “kids” are made up of buttons and bits of string, cardboard, feathers, grommets, and such, and are a pretty disheveled lot before Glue (late; “stuck in traffic”) arrives to sort everyone out and settle everything down. An imaginative invitation to seeing, to creative crafts, to story-hour performance.

Button is late - late, late, late. Missed the bus to school, on this day of all days. Everyone else who makes up the class - Feathers, Strings, Springs, Rings, Pom-Poms, Yarns, and Wheely Things - they're all inside, getting themselves together. Getting ready for the teacher, the camera, the wide-angle moment. But wait... wait, wait, wait... Button's not the only one late!