One Brick At A Time! Rain School by James Rumford

 

IN THE COUNTRY OF CHAD, IT IS THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.

Like first days everywhere, the children wear new school clothes. The big sisters and big brothers lead the excited and nervous little ones, full of questions, along the way.

THOMAS ASKED, "WILL THEY GIVE US A NOTEBOOK?  WILL THEY GIVE US A PENCIL?  WILL WE LEARN TO READ LIKE YOU?"

But when they get to school, there is no school building. There is a smiling teacher, who gets them right down to work--building the school. Kids get busy, making bricks from mud. Others gather long sticks and tie them together to form the framework of the walls. They gather branches and straw, and the agile ones clamber up the ladder to weave a roof to keep out the hot sun. The brick makers make seats and desks and put them in rows under the roof. It is cool inside.

The teacher has them take a seat and brings in a blackboard.

"A," SHE SAYS.

The children draw the shape of the letter in the air, and when they learn to do the same, the teacher passes out pencils and notebooks and they make the letters on their first page. As time passes they learn to make words out of the letters and read what they write. Sometimes she brings out an atlas and shows them a map with their country right in the middle of Africa. The year passes quickly, and their heads and notebooks are filled with what they have learned.

And when the school year ends, they take those notebooks home, and the big rains begin. The mud bricks and desks melt away and the winds bring down the poles and grass until the school seems to be gone. But is it?

The building will have to be re-built by the students the next year, but what they have learned stays in their minds, in James Rumford's Rain School (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Based on author-illustrator James Rumford's time spent teaching in Chad, his experiences provide the basis for the charming pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations of the eager young students dressed in their best, as they learn and grow in a school they built for themselves. An interesting take on starting back to school for most kids, this one gives them a new idea of the meaning of "the first day of school" and a sense that a school is not just a building, but what happens there. Says Booklist, "Without a heavy message, this spare and moving offering will leave kids thinking about the daily lives of other young people around the world."