Frightful First-Day Little Ghoul Goes to School by Jeff Czekaj

TOMORROW WAS THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, AND LITTLE GHOUL WAS NERVOUS.

"DON'T WORRY, MY LITTLE MAGGOT," SAYS HER MOTHER.

Mom promises that everything is going to go perfectly ghastly tomorrow. Little Ghoul reassured herself by downing a package of creepy crispies and brushed her teeth with rotten onion toothpaste, and her mom gave her a great big slobber and tenderly tucked her in.

But the next day dawned dreadfully. Instead of the cold and rainy day she's hoped for, it was disgustingly sunny. Instead of a decrepit old clunker of a bus, it's your standard cheery yellow school bus. The driver had an unpleasantly happy smile and the kids are boring normal children.

Little Ghoul is met in front of the school by a perfectly friendly principal who shows her to a putridly pink classroom and a standard-issue middle-aged teacher with another unpleasant big smile. At least she has lunch to look forward to. Her mom is sure to have packed her favorite brown-maggot and brown banana peel sandwich. Her stomach lurches when she sees a PB and J sandwich and cookie instead.

At least art class gives her a chance to rip up paper and splatter paint all over it. But her heart sinks when the teacher praises her dynamic work and posts it on the display board. The librarian tells the class that each student may check out a book to take home a book, but it's hard for Little Ghoul to pick one. Which is worst--Cute Babies, Happy Kittens, Adorable Squirrels??? She chooses the least abominable title, The Frightful Guest by Edward Scary.

To top off this perfectly dismal day, a boy approaches to shake hands.

"HI!" HE SMILED. "MY NAME IS BEN!"

"LET'S BE FRIENDS!"

"FRIENDS? FRIENDS!" "GHOULS DON'T HAVE FRIENDS!"

Suddenly, Little Ghoul WAKES UP!

It was all a NIGHTMARE! Maybe Little Ghoul's real first day will go better, that is, more ghastly!

Today is cold and rainy with just the right touch of thunder! Things are looking up already!

And this first day happily goes absolutely frightfully. She learns slime-oozing and her lunch is perfectly repulsive! All's well that ends abominably, in Jeff Czeka's Little Ghoul Goes to School (Balzer and Bray/HarperCollins, 2021). The more savvy third graders may even recognize the allusions to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the much-loved master of creepy middle grade mysteries, Edward Gorey. "... Sure to scare away the first-day-of-school nerves,” says School Library Journal.

Snow Day Friend: A Thousand White Butterflies by Jessica Betancourt-Perez and Karen Williams

OUTSIDE THE WINDOW THE U. S. IS COLD AND GRAY.

THE TREES WITHOUT LEAVES LOOK LONELY.  LIKE ME.

Isabella misses the trees, green with leaves and the warm air of Colombia, her Papa, and the friends she played with in the sun.

But today is the first day of school. She's already up and dressed in her new jeans and fluffy yellow sweater, with her schoolbag packed with brand new crayons she hopes to share with new friends. But her grandmother tells her to look out the window!

EVERYTHING IS SO WHITE!

IT LOOKS LIKE A THOUSAND WHITE BUTTERFLIES.

School is cancelled, and Isabella is sad. No new friends to share her crayons with today, she thinks.

"I HATE SNOW!"

But as she sits sadly by the window, she sees a girl outside, slipping and sliding, and suddenly falling down on her back in the snow. Isabella quickly puts on her puffy parka and stiff snow boots and hurries out to ask the girl if she is hurt.

"I MADE A SNOW ANGEL!" THE GIRL SMILED.

"MY NAME IS KATIE! SHE SAID. "LET'S MAKE A SNOWMAN!"

And there's no day like a snow day to make a new friend and learn to build a snowman, in Jessica Betancourt Perez's and Karen Williams' new A Thousand White Butterflies (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2021), and soon Isabella and Katie are making plans to walk to school tomorrow. The authors imbed Spanish into the text seamlessly, with meanings clear within the context, and also appends a glossary of Spanish words, while artist Gina Maldonado portrays the flow of emotions with empathy in her gently charming illustrations of friendship found. "An encouraging story of new beginnings," says Kirkus Reviews.

Nobody Knew My Name: Danbi Leads The School Parade by Anna Kim

On my first day of my new school in America, my heart beat "BOOM BOOM."

Mama held me and whispered, "Listen to your teacher and eat your lunch."

I said, "Don't worry, Mama, I will be good today!"

But beyond that red door, Danbi sees everyone in the class staring at her. The teacher smiles and shows her how to write her name, and Danbi does, but she doesn't understand what anyone is saying and she doesn't know how to play any of the games. Danbi tries, but it's embarrasing when her one block makes the whole tower fall. No one plays with her. Finally the teacher claps her hands and everyone pulls out lunch boxes.

"That I know how to do!" thought Danbi.

She opens her tall round lunch box, and there is a fancy feast--yams in honey, crystal dumplings, sweet and sour mini skewers, rainbow drops half-moon rice cakes. Amid their peanut butter and cheese sandwiches and juice boxes, they look exotic. The other kids are wowed! Danbi notices that the girl next to her is looking wishfully at her lunch box,

The girl next to her was looked hungrily at her lunch... so Danbi gave her a rainbow drop.

UH OH!

Ooops! The rainbow drop drops back into Danbi's lunch box. The girl doesn't know how to eat with chopsticks. Everyone laughs and Danbi gives her a lesson. Then Danbi has an idea: She taps on her lunch box with one chopstick.

TING!

The girl taps the other chopstick on her juice box.

TI-DING!

And Danbi and her new friend begin to march around the room drumming on their lunch boxes and soon the whole class joins them . They play together at recess, and afterward her new friend Nelly teaches her to write her name and then they write both names in English letters... on their cubbies, side by side:

SOFT AND ROUND WITH A DOT OVER ONE STRAIGHT LINE.

There are first days of school and then there are first days of school in a different country and in a new language, and Anna Kim makes use of her own experiences at school in America to give young readers an glimpse at how hard it is to be a stranger in a strange school, in her upbeat first day story, Danbi Leads the School Parade (Viking, 2020). Kim's story from the standpoint of being a really NEW kid at school is told with great understanding for all involved in Danbi's first day, and the author's artwork is charming and vivacious in the style of Hilary Knight's memorable illustrations for Kay Thompson's classic Eloise books. Kirkus Reviews gives this new one a rave starred review, saying, "Enchanting illustrations dazzle—particularly through the diverse characters’ hair and facial expressions that detail individuals’ unique traits while celebrating the entire cohort. Imaginative, irreverent, improvisational fun in kindergarten."

Milestones: The Proudest Blue by S. K. Ali and Ibtihaj Muhammed

It's the first day hijab. Asiyah knows it. I know it.

We're sisters.

It's a beautiful, bright sunny day. Little sister Faizah is excited about her first day of school. She has a new backpack and new shoes that flash with every step. She is also excited that this is her big sister's first day to wear her beautiful blue hijab to school. To Faizah, her big sister seems like a princess. But as her sister waves goodbye and joins the sixth-graders, a girl in front of her turns around.

"What's that on your sister's head?" she whispers.

 "A scarf," I whisper. "A hijab," I add. I don't know why that came out a whisper. 

"Oh," she whispers.

Suddenly Faizah needs to hug her sister. She runs across the schoolyard to the door of the sixth-grade area.

"Are you excited?" I ask. "About the first day of hijab?"

Her sister responds with a big smile. Then some one laughs and points at Asiyah.

A boy shouts that he's going to pull that tablecloth off her head.

Now the day doesn't seem so bright. But when her sister picks her up from her classroom at the end of the day, Asiyah is still smiling. Asiyah is strong. Faizah tells her mother about what happened, and she smiles, too.

"Hurtful words belong only to those who use them."

Ibithaj Muhammed and A. K. Ali's best-selling The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family (Little, Brown and Company, 2019) is a simple story of family unity and faithful religious practice, which for the proposed readership appropriately avoids the problems of diverse religious belief in a multicultural world in which tenets of one faith may violate the tenets of another, and instead stresses the need for respect of others' faith and practices in that world. Says Publishers Weekly, "This excellent story about identity, visibility, and confidence, touches on rites of passage, bonds between sisters, and bullying and is unapologetic in tackling misconceptions and demanding equality."

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!

Not THAT Class! The Class from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler

Who knows the fear that lurks in the heart of teachers before the first day of school?

It's the first day of school and I have a class coming in one hour. I heard that they put their last three teachers into early retirement!

The scuttlebutt in the teachers' lounge is that they all have two noses--the better for picking. They are world class at making spitballs... and excuses.

"My grandma ate my homework!"

They love art supplies, especially snacking on the crayons and colored chalks. But their best talent seems to be making noise.

They only come to school when they have contagious diseases.

They enjoy art and writing, but only on their desks!

Mrs. Green suits up in her crash helmet and all the protective equipment she can borrow from hockey goalies. She's as ready as she'll ever be! Finally her class enters the classroom.

WOW! They are all cheery and each one has only one nose!

Her jolly pupils greet her with flowers and apples. Some of the apples have several bites out of them already, but who's counting!

And another school year begins, in this one from the teacher's side of the desk, in The Class from the Black Lagoon (Cartwheel/Scholastic) in Mike Thaler's monster hit series beginning with The Teacher from the Black Lagoon, illustrated in appropriately wild kid-pleasing style by artist Jared Lee, also well known for his silly, scratchy illustrations for Lucille Colandro's seasonal staples, There Was An Old Lady series. There are plenty of titles in this popular and hilarious series to keep kids reading through summer vacation.

Oh, Yeah? The Pigeon HAS to go to School by Mo Willems

Why do I have to go to school?

I ALREADY KNOW EVERYTHING!

Pigeon is being oppositional.

Wait! School starts early in the morning? No way!

You know what I look like in the morning!

It's NOT PRETTY!

Pigeon is adamant that he doesn't need school!

Of course, it's obvious to everyone but himself that Pigeon is scared of starting to school. He has a million What Ifs. The teacher may not like him. He may not like the teacher. What about those school lunches? Nobody likes them! What about those ginormous backpacks they make you carry? There is too much stuff to learn! Like math! All those numbers. He has only one big eye, you know!

At last, Pigeon admits the truth:

The unknown stresses me out, Dude!

What Pigeon needs is a place to go to get used to school first.

OH. Like Preschool and Kindergarten.

And, WAIT! Pigeon is going to get to ride on the big yellow school bus? He is ON IT! He's even driven one, sort of!

Mo Willems' best-selling The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! (Hyperion Books, 2019) has the obstinate, nay-saying feathered scholar starring in the perfect prep book for the first day of school, giving voice to all the fears that youngsters feel before they walk through those epic doors into the world of education. Willems' Pigeon is already a super star, joining the notable, multiple award-winning Willems' other famed characters-- Knuffle Bunny and Elephant and Piggie, and the rest--who have charmed and guided children so long and so well through their early years. A million parents nervous about first-day anxieties thank you, Mo Willems!

Big Top Primary School! Your First Day of Circus School by Tara Lazar

What kid wouldn't want his first day to be at Clown School?

Even the stand-in for the school bus is as commodious as a clown car!

Don't worry. An endless number of seats!

But the Ringmaster does call the roll for all the new pupils:

Ladeez and Gentle-Men, Boys and Girls!
This is the most amazing day of all: your first day of school!  Step right up!

Right away the uniforms give it away. They are clown costumes, strong-man tights, band uniforms, and other natty circus garb.

They are introduced to their teacher--Miss Stupendous!

They are advised that the school cafeteria is a ZOO! In fact, it's a jungle in there!

But new students are congratulated for their high expectations as they climb up to take their turns on the trapeze!

Going to circus school is like being a human cannonball--a BLAST from the circus cannon, in Tara Lazar's latest, Your First Day of Circus School (Tundra, 2019).  With Melissa Crowton's colorful illustrations, this first-day-of-school tale is a lively introduction to circus school doings.

Tiny Turtle Trek! Truman by Jean Ready

Truman was the size of a donut,
a small donut--and every bit as sweet.

Truman is a tiny turtle who lives with Sarah in a tiny tank on the windowsill, overlooking a city street of loud taxis and trash trucks--where sometimes he sees the number 11 bus traveling south.

Truman is a very quiet pet, one who happy to watch Sarah color and play. But one morning is different.

Sarah hops out of bed, eats a very large banana, gets dressed in new clothes, and puts on a terribly big backpack.

Sarah placed seven green beans in Truman's dish
--two more than usual.

Something is up! And as Truman watches from his tank by the window, he sees Sarah go away on the number 11 bus with her mom.

Truman waits, bereft. At last he decides he must find Sarah, even if he has to take the number 11 bus, too!

Truman struggles to clamber up the rocks in his tank and drops down onto the floor to start his trek toward the door. It takes a very long time time in turtle hours. But at last Truman stands before the door, summoning all his courage to board the bus on the busy street. But after all, Truman is a valiant turtle.

Suddenly Truman hears the number 11 bus, and then, of course, Sarah returns from school, amazed to find her tiny but intrepid little turtle at the door, in Jean Ready's most delightsome pet story, Truman (Atheneum Books, 2019).

Author Jean Ready tells her tale of love and loyalty in charmingly precise but picturesque language and perhaps signals a sequel on the final pages with a hint that Truman may get to ride the number 11 bus after all--on Show and Tell Day. Artist Lucy Ruth Commins' blackline drawings use simple lines, with soft hues in single and double-page spreads that tell this "peaceful and pensive" story with perfect pacing and just the right touch of pathos. This picture book is just about perfect! In fact, Booklist's reviewer gives in and uses that one word that best describes Sarah's loyal and plucky little turtle: "Cummins has rendered in Truman a character so indisputably adorable that, coupled with Reidy's soulful characterization, readers of all ages will be falling in love."

First-Day Strategies: How to Get Your Teacher Ready by Jean Reagan

Teachers get first-day jitters, too!

You're ready for the first day of school.

But what about your teacher?

It's true. After all, there's only one teacher and lots of kids in her classroom.

YOU can hide behind your new notebook or the kid with big hair in front of you, but you can bet everyone is staring at your teacher!

With August comes an epidemic of school-days anxiety, and it may be time to revisit author Jean Reagan's and illustrator Lee Wildish's classic how-to manual for kids, How to Get Your Teacher Ready (How To...relationships) (Alfred A. Knopf. 2017) that should help banish butterflies in the tummy for teachers and students alike.

A great big smile is always a good beginning. But first things first....

Whisper, "I know where the bathroom is if you ever need to know."

Give your teacher a few hint or two about getting in good with the lunch ladies that'll encourage generous helpings.

Give her something special, but definitely not...
An ice sculpture for her desk...Or an already opened box of chocolates!

It's going to be a long year. To give the teacher something to look forward to, tell her about the good times to come--like Field Day (bring sunscreen), Zoo Day (don't forget the naked mole rats), and even the Last Day of School (with spontaneous hugs).

Artist Lee Wildish creates a classroom of cheerful moppets to keep the new teacher busy from the first day of school and right on through the year. Kids with first-day worries will be cheered by this classic by Jean Reagan, author of How to Babysit a Grandpa (How To...relationships) and How to Babysit a Grandma (How To...relationships).

Share this one with Julie Danneberg's best-selling tale of teacher anxieties, First Day Jitters (Mrs. Hartwell's Classroom Adventures) and the favorite Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten.

A NEW-NICORN? Unicorn Is Not So Great After All by Bob Shea

It's not easy being a sparkly sensation. On the first day of school, Unicorn can't help noticing that his friends are totally fascinated with an inexplicable new fad. His fan base is fickle.

Being a unicorn used to mean something around here.

But now all anyone cares about are rubber bands that look like other things.

"Goat, do people say I'm a yawn-icorn?"

"What? No! Nobody says anything about you."

It's even worse than he thought. Making it rain cupcakes seems to be passe this year.

Unicorn has got to up his dazzle quotient. He tries a makeover with a rainbow wig and tail extensions, bigger, brighter teeth, lots of rainbow tats, and a horn enhancer. Whimsy is the word.

But his attempts to come over as a novel, sassier self, a NEW-NICORN, fail to bedazzle.  He sheds sparkling glitter in everyone's lunch. He arranges for a drop of flaming birthday cakes in the middle of the soccer championship game.

Why does everyone wish the New-nicorn would just go home?

Bob Shea's latest,  Unicorn Is Maybe Not So Great After All (Disney Hyperion Books, 2019), with its theme of the dangers of too much of a good thing, is one of his best-yet picture books.  With cameo appearances of many of his comic characters--Goat, Dinosaur, and Ballet Cat--and chock-full of funny asides and the unfortunate consequences of Unicorn's blitz of self-promotion, this newest by author-illustrator Shea is good for reading aloud, but also bound to keep kids scrutinzing the pages to discover Shea's scribbly sight gags around the page which add extra fun to the story--with the extra bonus that Unicorn's classmates readily forgive his excesses and, sans sass and razzle dazzle, still count him a friend.

Share this new one with Bob Shea's earlier giggle-creator, Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great.

First Day: The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson

There will be a day when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you.

Maybe it will be your skin, your clothes, or the curl of your hair.

The first day in a new class is hard. No one wants to be the odd one out, and when the teacher does the "what I did this summer" round robin. When Angelina listens to all the summer stories of flying  to other states and other continents, she feels like the only one who stayed home and looked after her little sister  and read lots of books. The teacher calls on a new boy to introduce himself.

"I'm Rigoberto from Venezuela," he says.

The class laughs, until the teacher repeats it softly and his name sounds almost like music.

And when Angelina says her long name, the kids stare at her until Rigoberto speaks right up.

"Your name is like my sister's. Her name is also Angelina."

And all at once in the room where on one else is quite like you, the world opens up a little wider to make some space for you.

And all at once Angelina feels comfortable telling how in her summer she read books to her little sister and to herself long after bedtime and realizes that like them, she, too, took flight to many places, and she begins to tell her class about what she read.

Feeling like the stranger in the room is an almost universal experience at some time in life. It may be a classroom, a college, an office, or a new town, but finding some connection with strangers makes it easier to see the things we may have in common. In her best-selling The Day You Begin (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2018) the Newbery Medalist and National Book Award winning Jacqueline Woodsen's first-day story, illustrated by award-winning artist Rafael Lopez, is a sort of parable for children in dealing with new situations, finding what you have in common and valuing what you may not share at first. This is a fine book for the first day of school; as Publisher's Weekly said, "Woodsen's gentle, lilting story and Lopez's artistry create a stirring portrait of the courage it takes to be yourself."

Jacqueline Woodson has won the American Library Association's John Newbery Award for Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster (Newbery Honor Book), Feathers, and Show Way. (See reviews here)

Back to School! Ready Or Not, Woolbur Goes to School! by Leslie Helakoski

It's the first day of school, and little Woolbur is up for it!

"I can dress myself and fix my wool!"

"No one else will look like you," said Maa.

"Your wool is a little unusual," said Paa.

"I know," said Woolbur.

"Isn't it great?"

With his wool in something like wild dreadlocks, Woolbur is more than ready to take on Barnyard Elementary. His confidence is overwhelming. When the other piglets and puppies and little llamas struggle to to paint houses and snowmen, Woolbur's painting is clearly avant garde abstractionist.

"We can't tell if it's upside down or right side up," said Dog.

"I know," said Woolbur.

"Isn't it great?"

When it's time to wash up after art, Llama laments that there are so many of them at the sink. Woolbur replies that that's great! Goat grouches that grass tastes different in the school cafeteria. Woolbur agrees and adds that that's great. Donkey does not like the noisy new games on the playground. Pig objects to riding the bus home.

"It's filled with kids I don't know," said Pig.

I know," said Woolbur.

"Isn't it great?"

With the exception of James Dean's Pete the Cat's Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes, most well-known back-to-school stories deal with fears of the unknown, but in Leslie Helakoski's Ready or Not, Woolbur Goes to School! (Harper, 2018), her popular woolly character is an unusual first-time student who immediately embraces the newness of everything there.

Woolbur is a far-from-sheepish little lamb who loves novelty, a gung-ho little character who humorously flips the trope of the fearful school newbie and whose ebullient style gives youngsters an appreciation of the positive side of new experiences. As Pete the Cat would say, "It's all good!" Helakoski's use of Woolbur's repeated take on the unexpected will bring some laughs, and noted artist Lee Harper milks Woolbur's enthusiastic embrace of everything for all it's worth in her vibrant, full-bleed illustrations. "In a long list of appealing back-to-school books, this one really makes the grade," puns School Library Journal.

Getting in the Swim! Nugget and Fang Go to School by Tammi Sauer

Whenever the other fish in the sea saw Fang, they'd panic.

"Don't worry, guys!" called Nugget. "Fang's a vegetarian."

Most fish never stuck around long enough to find out for sure.

First days are hard. Everyone feels like a fish out of water on the first day of school, and for a big, toothy shark, it's certainly a different kettle of fish!

Still, little Nugget and his friends the Mini-Minnows are eager for Fang to matriculate with them at Mini-Minnows Elementary.

But this kind of school is new to Fang. His teeth are chattering.

"I think I'm seasick!"

But his buddy Nugget grabs him by a fin and pulls him inside to introduce him to their teacher, Mrs. Crab.

"She looks crabby!" whispers Fang.

And Fang's first day-jitters are not helped when he feels like a shipwreck at reading. He's a bottom feeder at math, he sinks at science, he's not smart at art, he flounders in music, and then it's time for show-and-tell! Fang feels like a failure with nothing to show off, until he looks at Nugget's big smile.

Then Fang finds he has one thing to brag about--

"I HAVE THE BEST FRIEND IN THE UNDERWATER WORLD!"

From preschool to post-grad, first days mean learning to swim with a new school, and Tammi Sauer's funny, finny undersea story of first-day jitters, Nugget and Fang Go to School (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Clarion, 2019), will help young readers take the bait, so to speak, as they prepare to put a toe into new waters. Artist Michael Slack is back to provide the cool undersea illustrations for this latest Nugget and Fang story to help young readers prepare to take the plunge into elementary education.

Tummy Jitters: Butterflies on the First Day of School by Annie Silvestro

A month before school, Rosie picked out her first backpack.

She loved it with all her heart.

But the night before school starts, Rosie is almost sleepless. She can't eat the special chocolate chip pancakes her mom makes for her first-day breakfast.

"I don't feel well," she said.

"You just have butterflies in your belly," said her mother.

Who doesn't love butterflies? But not in your tummy, making it feel all floaty and tingly.

But then a girl named Violet sits down beside her on the bus and they discover they have the same teacher, and when Rosie opens her mouth to tell Violet her name, she sees a butterfly fly out. Violet doesn't seem to notice.

Still, there are some butterflies in her tummy and Rosie feels queasy when her teacher asks her to tell the other kids something about herself, but when she volunteers that she has a baby sister, she sees three more butterflies float away. No one else can see them, she supposes.

The day goes well, with painting and playground races, and when Rosie spots another girl standing alone, she goes over ask her name, and something surprising happens.

When Isabella tells Rosie her name, a whole bunch of butterflies fly up with her answer.

And when Rosie dashes down from the bus to tell her mother about what she did with her friends on the first day of school... her mom seems relieved.

"I can't wait to hear all about it," she smiled.

The words floated out on butterflies' wings!

Who knew parents have butterflies on the first day of school? Apparently author Annie Silvestro does, in her just published Butterflies on the First Day of School (Sterling Children's Books, 2019). First-day jitters affect everyone--students, parents, and teachers--on that important day, and Silvestro's insightful story, presented with the aid of artist Dream Chen's endearing butterfly prints and warm, appealing illustrations, will help reassure school newbies that butterfly flutters in the tummy are a universal experience.

Rebel Without a Cause! Super Saurus Saves Kindergarten by Deborah Underwood

Kindergarten was starting in two days.

"No kindergarten in the universe can hold me," said Arnold.

"I am SUPER SAURUS!"

Arnold doesn't want to let his twin sister Emily know he's anxious about starting Kindergarten, so he assumes his superhero identity and makes preparations for the big day. He packs his snorkel, a jar of peanut butter, and his homemade boat.

Arnold climbs into their sedan, which transforms instantly into a submarine, with Mom and Dad in the front seat, driving their prisoner relentlessly onward to the sinister towers of Dino Tykes Elementary, which Arnold envisages as the lair of the evil Mr. Zorgo. Along the way he dons his Super Saurus Scuba Suit, and makes a brief escape before Dad blocks his path.

"Time for Plan B," said Super Saurus.

Super Saurus whips out his jar of peanut butter and converts his sneakers to Sticky Shoes.

"They'll never find me... on top of this skyscraper,"

The skyscraper looks a lot like the twisty slide, and Arnold is again snagged by Dad and brought to the very door of the evil Zorgo's lair.

"The teacher is Mr. Zachary," says Emily, trying to explain.

The seemingly mild-mannered Mr. Z. invites Arnold inside, where the other kids are sitting on the floor.

But Arnold is having nothing to do with sitting on that rug. It's a popular trap, but one that Super Saurus has planned for. He pulls out his escape vehicle and prepares to blast off into outer space.

But then he heard howling.

One of his peers seems to be having a first-day meltdown. A true Super Saurus would not abandon helpless preschoolers to the clutches of the evil Zorgo, would he?

Duty calls, and Arnold returns to protect the weak. He shields his fellow students from the Vacuum Viper and defends them against the terrible KROK, (a.k.a., the class pet lizard.) At art time he creates a colorful poster advertising the services of Super Saurus. Super Arnold saves the day!

"I'm glad you were here today, Super Saurus." said Mr. Z.

Deborah Underwood's Super Saurus Saves Kindergarten (Hyperion, 2017) offers a super look at the first-day-fears of a very imaginative kid, ably assisted by artist Ned Young, who portrays the riotously inventive Arnold's ingenious scenarios in bright acrylic illustrations. For kids worried about being able to boldly go when they've never gone before, share this one with Planet Kindergarten (see review here.)

"Imagination as a coping mechanism equals lots of superpowered fun," says Kirkus Reviews.

School Days: Fairy's First Day of School by Bridget Heos

Mom's got an early morning surprise for little Fairy.

"You'll be starting school soon, Fairy.

You're probably wondering what to expect."

Mom pours each of them some herbal tea from her acorn teapot and sits down to brief her little fairy on what to expect from her first day of school.

"You'll put on your backpack and fly to school, either with your family or on the schoolbird."

The schoolbird sounds a lot like Mother Goose, which promises to be a fun way to flit to school. Little Fairy's mother tells her that a very kind teacher will greet her with a shower of fairy dust, have hang her backpack with the others on a dandelion leaf, and come along to meet the others in her class.

"Flutter your wings to say hello," she says.

Her teacher will sit the class down in a crisscross berry sauce circle and reminds them to raise their wands if they have a question. There will be center time for learning about magic spells and classifying collected baby teeth for the tooth fairy, and they will take turns being the door holder, the line leader, and the pet helper. At lunch, politely take a seat on your toadstool, Teacher will tell them. And after rest time in the napping tree, there is story time--with everyone's favorite fairy tales.

There are so many fun things to do that before you know it, Little Fairy, it will be time to pack up for home, Mom assures her, in Bridget Heos' forthcoming Fairy's First Day of School (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018). With the help of artist Sara Not's blackline drawings, done in bright pastel palette suitable for a fairy tale version of the preschool/primary day, author Heos captures the special magic of the first day of school, with promises of new friends and happy schooldays to come and something wondrous to tell Mom and Dad:

"Once upon a time, I had my first day of school!"