Chain Reaction! A Small Kindness by Stacy McAnulty

 

IT WAS LIKE A GAME OF TAG.

ALICE SMILED AT LUCAS...

It's a drab day as a group of preschool kids line up in front of the school with their teacher, Ms. Jones. She gives them her best welcoming smile.

As the kids put away their things in their cubbies, Alice passes along that smile, which moves Lucas to give a welcoming wave to Jasmine, who, in the morning circle willingly passes a turn to hold the class hamster along to a patiently waiting Xavier, who returns the favor to Ms. Jones by holding the door to the Art Room.

It's a chain reaction, as one good deed deserves another through the day. Xaxier's gentlemanly act helps Ms. Jones keep her cool and joke with Henry when he spills blue paint on the floor, and as the school day goes on, each child in turn is moved to pass along small kindnesses and helpfulness until all the class is smiling, cooperating, and high fiving. It's a really good day for Ms. Jones' class, in Stacy McAnulty's just published A Small Kindness (Roaring Press Kids, 2021). Artist Wendy Leach moves from an opening sepia page to a soft rainbow of coloration which spreads from child to child to teacher and even the custodian in the hall in a rainbow of good will which continues on the playground until every student is shown in full color, symbolically brightened by small kindnesses, compliments and courtesies, in the spirit of paying it forward that motivates each of them to share.

AND EVERYBODY WON!

A delightful cooperation between author and illustrator makes this a good book for the first day of school or any dreary day that needs a bit of brightening goodwill.

Says Booklist, "A clever visual conceit helps demonstrate the simple power of paying kindness forward in this gentle, encouraging picture book."

A Time For Everything! Sullivan, Who Is Always TOO LOUD! by Micol Ostow

HELLO! THIS IS SULLIVAN, WHO IS ALWAYS TOO LOUD!

He has only one level of volume--BLARING.

Sullivan wakes up his sleeping baby sister Ella-Baby, who cries, adding to the volume, which makes MR. Jenkins downstairs bang on his ceiling with his cane, which only makes MORE NOISE. His mom tries taping pillows over his mouth, and Sullivan tries to keep quiet, but his loudness just bubbles up until it cannot be contained. Naturally, his loudness gets him in trouble in school with his teacher, Mrs. Chow, and even with his percussion teacher, Ms. Gonzalez, who doesn't NEED that many cymbal crashes! Sullivan spends a lot of time in the PEACE CORNER.

"I HAVE LOUDNESS IN MY BODY, BUBBLING UP. IT HAS TO COME OUT!" SULLIVAN SAYS.

"IT DOESN'T HAVE TO COME OUT IN THE GROCERY STORE!" MOM SAYS.

Exuberance can be a good thing, but Mom's nerves have had it! She suggests counting to three before he produces a sound. Sullivan barely makes it to 3 before he breaks out a YELL.

"IT'S A START!" SAYS MOM.

But with practice, Sullivan begins to stifle his outbursts and control his volume better and better. Days pass without any timeouts in the Peace Corner. But then one day, after outdoor play period, when Ms. Chow calls the class to line up, Annalise doesn't come. Mrs. Chow uses her biggest "outside teacher voice," but Annalise is in the far corner of the playground and oblivious.

Suddenly Sullivan feel his LOUDNESS bubbling up--into his special, extra wild, TARZAN YELL!

"ANNA-LISE!!!!!"

There's a time and a place for everything, even LOUDNESS, in Micol Ostow's brand-new Sullivan, Who Is Always Too Loud (Roaring Brook, 2020). The silly and comical illustrations of Brian Biggs make this lesson on self-control fun for youngsters who have their own excesses to contend with! Artist Brian Biggs, who claims modestly that he's illustrated a bazillion books, puts this one over the top!

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."

Small Acts: Be Kind by Pat Zietlow Miller

Tanisha spilled grape juice yesterday. All over her new dress.

Everyone laughed.

Mom always tells me to be kind. So I tried.

I don't think it helped.

Parents and teachers and authors are always telling kids to be kind. But what does being kind actually look like? And what do you do when what you do doesn't seem to work?

Our girl rushes in to help dry Tanisha's dress and wipe up the spilled juice, but the Tanisha only dashes into the hall.

At art time our girl arranges her easel close to Tanisha, paints lots of purple splotches, and wonders if she should tell Tanisha that purple is her favorite color. It is, but what if Tanisha now hates purple? Should she offer Tanisha her extra sweat shirt to cover the purple stain? Should she spill something so that the others will laugh at her? Does misery always love company? Or would Tanisha just rather to have everyone forget about her spill as soon as possible?

"What does it mean to be kind?

It's not always easy to know how to be kind.

Some things seem like sure things. Putting dirty dishes in the sink and listening to her Aunt Franny tell the same old stories over and over again seem to be a easy choice.. Picking up litter, saying "thank you," and " bless you" to a sneezer seem safe. But sometimes...

Being kind can be hard, too.

It takes paying attention. Sometimes what seems like a good thing can be the wrong thing to do.

Maybe I can only do small things.

Pat Zietlow Miller's New York Times best-selling Be Kind (Roaring Brook Press, 2018) gets into the nitty-gritty of being kind in our daily life, while still affirming that small, sometimes random acts of kindness can create a chain reaction among people. Artist Jen Hill's sensitive illustrations extend Zietlow's text, picturing possible outcomes of the impulses to show kindliness as traveling far beyond our girl's actual daily life. "[A] lovely exploration of empathy and thoughtfulness," says School Library Journal's starred review.

Focus! Barnaby Never Forgets by Pierre Collet-Derby

OH, BOY! WHERE DID I PUT MY GLASSES?

Barnaby thought he had it all together for school!

I NEVER FORGET WHEN IT'S ICE CREAM NIGHT.

He remembers all the right things--when to write letters to Santa, when to bring in the mail, when to feed his grasshoppers....

Well, maybe not ALWAYS. That wet swimsuit he left on the floor of his room? That jacket he misplaced... somewhere....?

But then, there's always a nice surprise when he finds something he didn't know he'd lost!

...LIKE THE DOLLAR BILL GRANDMA GAVE ME FOR RAKING LEAVES!

There's even a lollipop from his last birthday party at the bottom of his backpack, only slightly fuzzy.

Barnaby catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. There are his glasses--on his face already. Maybe he won't be late for school after all. He grabs his backpack and runs all the way. But...

WHERE IS EVERYBODY?

The swings in the playground are empty. No kids are lining up at the door. The bell isn't ringing.

Could Barnaby have forgotten something important? Could today be ... SATURDAY?

And that's not the only thing Barnaby forgot, something that will keep young readers giggling right to the end, in author-illustrator Pierre Collet-Derby's brand-new Barnaby Never Forgets (Candlewick Press, 2017). Oops! Getting it (or not getting it) together for school is something we all know about, especially in those hectic back-to-school days, and Collet-Derby's illustrations of his forgetful little bunny boy are empathetic, charming, and lovable, a great read aloud to break the ice and relax the tension after that hectic scurry to school. More Barnaby, please!

A Friend in Need: The Very Fairy Princess A Spooky Sparkly Halloween by Julie Andrews and Emma Hamilton

BOO! You might not recognize me, because I'm wearing a costume... but I'm still a fairy princess underneath.

You can take the princess out of her sparkles, but you can't take the sparkles out of a princess.

But Gerry has a problem with her costume for the school Halloween parade. Her brother wisecracks that she should go as a drama queen! Her dad annoyingly jokes that she can just wear her daily attire, fairy wings and crown. Gerry protests:

"That's not a costume! That's what I AM!"

How to find a costume that allows her to keep her crown and wings? But real fairy princesses rise above adversity, and Gerry has a stroke of brilliance. She adds a draped white sheet and a halo, and voila'--she's an angel!

At school everyone is dressed for the occasion, and her best friend Delilah shows her her dentist's costume, pointing out that that is what she's going to be when she grows up. But at lunch, class clown Connor gets a bit wild with the ketchup for his hot dog and squirts the red stuff all over Delilah's impeccable white medical coat. Delilah is distraught.

"I can't wear this in the parade! It sends TOTALLY the wrong message about dentists!"

But a friend in need is a friend indeed. Gerry takes off her sheet, and tying it around Delilah's shoulders in two big knots, turns her into a giant tooth.

"But what about your costume?" asks the loyal Delilah.

Gerry gets to work with construction paper, glue, and glitter, and presto! Suddenly she's the Tooth Fairy, the perfect parade partner for Delilah, and the two take the trophy for the Most Creative Teamwork.

Fairy princesses make sacrifices for friends in need, and Julie Andrews and daughter Emma Walton Hamilton concoct another convincing plot for their persistently effervescent and best-selling heroine in The Very Fairy Princess: A Spooky, Sparkly Halloween (Little Brown Kids, 2016), all dressed up for the holiday in an appropriately glittery new paperback edition with stickers, in a story that celebrates the Halloween holiday with the bonus of a perky plug for thinking outside the box. Their illustrious illustrator, Christine Davenier, provides the sparkle in her charming watercolor and pencil artwork of a very fairy princess at work in the world, in a holiday story that young readers will relish (without Connor's ketchup!)

Back to School: School's First Day At School by Adam Rex

That summer they dug up the big field and poured the foundation and sat brick on to of brick until they'd built a school.

A sign above the door read FREDERICK DOUGLASS ELEMENTARY. That's a good name for me, thought the school.

But a new school is like a first-time student. Unschooled. Clueless.

A nice man named Janitor comes every day throughout the summer to paint and polish up the inside, and sometimes Janitor tries to tell School about what is about to happen, but School can't help being nervous about that first day.

Who knew a school has first-day fears, too?

In fresh paint and varnish, School is all dressed up for opening day, just like his students. But all does not go perfectly. School experiences an unexpected fire drill, and the students who have just settled in their new desks have to hustle out and stand on the playground. And as they file back in, School hears some conversations that give him a sick feeling way down in his basement.

Some older students gathered by the back fence and showed their bored faces.

"This place stinks," said one.

School sagged a little.

"I don't like school," says one kid.

Maybe it doesn't like you either, thinks School.

But soon the students are all settling down with their teachers, and Janitor gets to take a much-needed break.

School tunes in to what is going on down in the Kindergarten, where Aiden, Max, Bella, Emma, and Chloe sit together on the circle time rug and learn all about shapes. There's that quiet hum of a school where brains are busy learning new things, and a sense of peace settles over School. It's been a good day, all in all, with more to come, and School knows he's in the right place after all.

Adam Rex's latest, School's First Day of School (Roaring Brook Press, 2016), is a different sort of first-day story, seen from the point of view of a brand-new school, a newbie who, like the students, doesn't quite know what to going to happen. Kids will chuckle at the usual events, a sudden fruit-basket-turnover as an unexpected fire drill sends everyone back outside, one boy giggles so hard that he squirts milk all over School's pristine and polished lunchroom floor. (I'm covered with nose milk, thinks School), and drawings get thumb-tacked to his perfectly painted walls (Ouch!). Building on Rex's polished storytelling, Caldecott-winning artist, (for Last Stop on Market Street) Christian Robinson, adds tidy American primitive collage and acrylic illustrations with wide-angle and up-close looks at the first day of school and--of School himself.

Young students will never look at their schools in quite the same way again. An essential purchase for back-to-school reading. As Publishers Weekly puts it, "Every so often, a book comes along with a premise so perfect, it’s hard to believe it hasn’t been done before; this is one of those books."

Back-to-School: Pete the Cat's Got Class by James Dean

"IT'S MATH TIME!" SAYS PETE'S TEACHER, MR. G.

PETE THE CAT LOVES MATH. HE LOVES HOW THE NUMBERS GO TOGETHER.

Pete is cool with math at school. He even enjoys math homework!

But his buddy Tom doesn't feel that way.

"I HATE MATH!" SAYS TOM.

"YOU JUST DON'T LOVE IT YET!" SAYS PETE.

Pete goes home after school with Tom to help him out with his math.

"HELP IS COOL!"

But Tom is not cool with math. He pronounces it boring.

When counting up colored blocks doesn't do the trick with addition, Pete gets an idea. Tom loves his cars, and Pete gets Tom's attention by turning the homework problems into car exercises, and turning the mathematical digits into race cars. Tom gets the point of math, and the two race through their homework in record time.

But after school the next day, Tom and Pete find themselves called on the carpet by Mr. G., who accuses Pete of letting Tom copy his homework. Can Tom stand up to Mr. G. and demonstrate that he now understands addition?

In James Dean's latest, Pete the Cat's Got Class (Harper, 2016), Tom makes it into the winner's circle, using his collection of cars as exhibit A for Arithmetic, and he and Pete are on their way to getting an A on their report cards. Dean's familiar blue cat, the class of his class, is still walkin' in his school shoes in a special lesson in how to be cool at school, just in time for the back-to-school season. This inexpensive little paperback also includes a large "School Is Cool" poster and a set of punch-out flash cards as a vehicle for polishing up those basic math skills before the bell rings for the first day back.

School Days: The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School by Laura Murray

"I BEGAN IN A BOWL."

Lovingly but with lots of giggles, a class stirs up a batch of ginger cookie dough, rolls it out, and artistically decorates their gingerbread man. But just as he's being taken out of the oven, the bell rings for recess. The kids bustle outside, leaving the cooling gingerbread man hot to trot.

"I'M THE GINGERBREAD MAN AND I'M TRYING TO FIND

 THE CHILDREN WHO MADE ME AND LEFT ME BEHIND."

But  a couple of minutes behind, the poor cookie man has to hustle. He gets flattened by a loose soccer ball from the gym,
Coach retrieves it from the hall:

"GOOD GRIEF! IT'S A COOKIE!

OH, NO! HERE'S A TOE!"

Coach escorts the Gingerbread Man to the school nurse's office, where a bit of goofy glue repairs his foot--sort of.

"I LIMP AND I'LL LIMP AS FAST AS I CAN...."

Now more than a couple of more minutes behind his class, the Gingerbread Man gamely continues, taking a short cut by sliding down a banister. Airborne, he lands in the art teacher's lunch sack on top of a sandwich. Good humoredly, she takes her drop-in friend to the office.

Just as Principle Peacock is considering what administrative action to take, a group of kids come by, putting up signs with his picture and with a welcome message:

MISSING!

ROOM 23

PLEASE RETURN!

HE'S OUR GINGERBREAD MAN.

It's time for one tough cookie to return to his classroom and his class, where his kids get busy building him a gingerbread house, in Laura Murray's latest, The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2013). If you started school anytime in the past forty or fifty years, you probably have fond memories of your hunt for the runaway Gingerbread Man, a clever scheme of Kindergarten teachers to take kids on a tutorial tour of the layout and personnel of the elementary school, and this tall tale is a good way to introduce a preschool or Kindergarten class to this important rite of passage.

Other sweet schooltime treats include Murray's community helpers account, The Gingerbread Man Loose on the Fire Truck and Joan Holub's The Gingerbread Kid Goes to School (Penguin Young Readers, L2).

Not So Tight! Hugs from Pearl by Paul Schmid

PEARL IS SWEET. SHE'S A VERY GOOD FRIEND.

SHE PLAYS FAIR. SHE SHARES HER LUNCH TREATS, AND BEST OF ALL....

PEARL LOVES TO HUG!

But Pearl is not perfect. Pearl's problem is that she is prickly. No, she's not a petulant or pugnacious or persnickety personality. Pearl's problem is that she is a porcupine!

Her classmates say "OUCH!" a lot. Her teacher keeps the Band-Aids handy. Soft-hearted Pearl prefers not to hurt anyone, and her quillaciousness is getting in the way of her personal relationships. What to do?

She tries long hot baths to soften the quills. She pokes pincushions on the offending points. She even talks her mom into a butch-style quillcut. But none of these procedures are permanent solutions to the prickly problem. But Pearl is persistent. She perseveres at her search for a solution, and one day, observing bees working around a thorny rose bush, she comes up with a compromise that cuts down on the need for so many Band-Aids at school.

Paul Schmid's newest, Hugs from Pearl (Harper, 2011), takes a look at personal problems that flow, not from what kids do so much as from what they are. Kids are tall, short, nearsighted, shy, clumsy, and a whole passle of physical characteristics that can affect relationships, and Pearl is a porcupine who takes her innate prickliness in hand and finds a useful work-around to deal with it. Schmid's illustrations are simple, funny, and telling, pointing up this character's real dilemma and her courage in taking ownership of it and persisting in finding a solution. Pearl is a girl whose loving nature shines through in a sweet and satisfying story.

For more giggles, pair Pearl with Deborah Underwood's A Balloon for Isabel, reviewed here for a pair of sisters-above-the-skin, a prickly pair of porcupine protagonists who find a way to make their quills work for them.

Prehistoric Pet Day: Dino Pets Go to School by Lynn Plourde

MY TEACHER SAID
"IT'S PET DAY!
SO BRING YOUR PET
TO SCHOOL TO PLAY.

I BROUGHT A DINO
FOR A PET,
THE TALLEST DINO
I COULD GET.

Well, technically, our little scholar intends to bring his tallest dino to school, but there's a little problem with seating on the school bus involving his long-necked sauroposeidon and some hanging traffic lights along the route.

Oh, well, how about a more compact dino? The loudest dino he knows?

AFTER I MADE THE INTRODUCTION,
OUR WHOLE CLASSROOM NEEDED RECONSTRUCTION!

This show-and-tell pet day is not off to a good start. Our boy tries again, this time with the spikiest dino from his menagerie. Things go well until the class takes a recess and tries to get a soccer game going, and his styracosaurus attempts to make a head pass. The game ends early--but with a BANG!

The boy keeps on trying--with the widest dinosaur (massive damage to the bench in the lunchroom) and the smartest dino, (a troodon smart enough to please the kids by eating the math tests before the quiz)--and the frazzled teacher gives him an ultimatum--"one more try!"

This time the boy has a brainstorm: What kind of dino can't wreck classroom routine? How about a very young one? So he loads a dino egg on his red wagon and hauls it back to school. What harm can a nice, spotted egg do to the school day? Well,....

Lynn Plourde, famous for her hilarious School Picture Day (Picture Puffin Books) has another comic tale of one of those special days at school in her latest Dino Pets Go to School (Dutton, 2011), just in time to kick off Pet Day or the ever-popular prehistoric life unit in your favorite classroom. For teachers or diehard dinosaur fans, Plourde adds to artist Gideon Kendall's paleontologically correct illustrations with her appended "Dino Facts," which identifies each of the class's prehistoric visitors.

See also Plourde's earlier Dino Pets for more funny dino pet disasters.