What's NOT New? Brown Bear Starts School by Sue Tarsky

It was Brown Bear's first day of school. He was wearing his new sweater and his new scarf.

He was carrying his new book bag, with his new notebook and his new pencil case, filled with new pencils and erasers. He even had a new lunch box.

Everything is NEW, and Brown Bear doesn't feel comfortable with all this NEW.

Mom tells him that his school may be new to him, but a lot of his old friends are going to be students there. Brown Bear feels a little better. But he has another worry.

"What if I can't hear the teacher?" he asks.

His mom gives him a quizzical look.

"Can you hear me?" she asks.

Uh-huh. But Brown Bear has more worries. What if his clothes look funny? Mom assures him that, in that case, they can shop for different clothes that very afternoon.

And when they head out to school, Little Bear sees his friend, dressed just like him with a new book bag and lunch box, too. In fact, most of the other new students look very familiar. And when one of his friends kicks a ball out into the street, his teacher Miss Zipper is proud that Brown Bear knows to tell her not to run after it into the busy street. All's well with all the kids confessing to first-day jitters, in Sue Tarsky's Brown Bear Starts School. A first-day story with a a just-right combination of new and old, with illustrator Marina Aizan's sweet, toy-like little characters with a can-do attitude. Pair this one with Mo Willems' first-day hit, The Pigeon HAS to Go to School!