RATING AND CONTENT
Recommended for ages 4 and older
Quality: 5 out of 5
Educational value: 5 out of 5
Positive messages: 5 out of 5
Positive role models: 5 out of 5
Violence and scariness: 0 out of 5
Language: 0 out of 5
BOOK DETAILS
Author: Adam Rex
Illustrator: Christian Robinson
Genre: Picture book
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Publication date: June 28, 2016
Number of pages: 40
Parents need to know that “School’s First Day of School,” by Adam Rex, illustrated by Newbery Award winner Christian Robinson (“Last Stop on Market Street”), is about the anxieties and fears kids might face when they first start school, with a very clever twist: It’s the school itself that’s brand new and worried about the first day. This school has feelings kids will recognize and relate to, and the book provides realistic but reassuring information about what they might expect. (Will the school like the kids? At first he doesn’t.) Robinson pictures a warm, diverse environment that’s integrated racially and includes a girl in a wheelchair playing with a friend on the playground. This warm, sweet, funny book is an absolute perfect choice for kids starting school.
WHAT’S THE STORY?
In “School’s First Day of School,” a new school, built over the summer, anticipates the start of his busy new life. At first, “a man named Janitor” comes and tells the school that soon children will be there, too. And though Janitor assures the school he’ll like them, the school worries that he probably won’t and feels overwhelmed when the kids arrive by the busload, “more of them than the school could possibly have imagined.” The school day progresses: Kindergartners sit on a rug and introduce themselves, there’s a fire drill, lunch in a cafeteria, a lesson about shapes, and an art project. After the kids leave, the school tells Janitor all about his day and realizes he feels lucky to be a school.
IS IT ANY GOOD?
In this perfectly pitched, emotionally resonant book, a school building worries about and adjusts to the arrival of kids and the first day of school and ends up looking forward to the second. The book introduces school routines — sitting on a rug, eating in a cafeteria, fire drills, recess — clueing kids in on what to expect. Throughout, the school’s reactions are cleverly and recognizably “human” and leavened with gentle humor. At the water fountain, the school sprays a kid who says, “I hate school,” but then the school feels bad about it. At lunch, one kid squirts milk out of his nose, and the school thinks, “Now I’m covered with nose milk.” And the only real threat comes from some older kids who look bored and say things like, “This place stinks.”
The school, Frederick Douglass Elementary (“That’s a good name for me,” thought the school), has a seamlessly integrated student body, and, as with most adjustments, it’s a friend who helps most. The janitor proves to be the perfect friend — a good listener who’s gently reassuring.
About the Author
