Back to School
At the start of every school year, teachers and librarians across the country search through various bookstores and scour their own collections for that perfect first day of school read aloud. It's far from an easy task. In order to be selected, the book has to meet a lot of different requirements. It must set the tone for the upcoming school year. It ought to acknowledge and reassure those first day nerves. And it should begin the process of forming a class of children into a community of learners.
Above all, however, the book must be a great story. After all, it may very well be the first book that some students have read since the start of summer break, and will most certainly be the book that sets the stage for all the stories to be shared throughout the year. In other words, that read aloud on the first day of school will either establish or interfere with the idea that reading as a class is both a valuable and an enjoyable activity. Again, it's not easy to find a book that can meet even one of of these critical prerequisites - much less every single one of them for all the diverse children in any given classroom.
This school year, however, educators don't have to search quite so hard for that first book, thanks to the combined talents of Adam Rex and Christian Robinson. Their first collaboration together, School's First Day of School, is the perfect way to welcome students to another year of learning, discovery, and reading.
Sure to become a staple in classroom libraries of all grades, this story offers a brilliantly unique take on the first day of a new school year - from the perspective of the school itself. Frederick Douglass Elementary is opening his doors for the first time and isn't quite sure he is going to like his unexpected role. Along with the many students that soon fill his hallways, his classrooms, and his playground, the school experiences the highs and lows of a normal day. He meets shy students, friendly students, and not-so-friendly students; he learns new things; and he has some messy moments. All in all, it's a day filled with emotions and experiences that every new or veteran student can easily relate to.
The illustrations in this story are everything we've come to expect from Christian Robinson. Still relatively new to the children's literature world, Robinson has already won several significant awards and collaborated with many kid lit superheroes: Kelly DiPucchio, Mac Barnett, Matt de la Pena, and now, with this latest release, Adam Rex. Robinson's distinctive use of different mediums, vibrant colors, and simple yet expressive shapes works incredibly well within all of the stories he's illustrated, but seems particularly appropriate for School's First Day of School. Reminiscent of a child's expressive drawings on a blank sheet of paper, these illustrations capture the energy, innocence, and creativity of his target audience. As per usual with Robinson's artwork, the scenes are tastefully sparse while at the same time filled with delightful details familiar to real life. The expansive white space on each page leaves ample room for the imagination and somehow gives the scenery an amazing depth and an almost 3D effect. Because of this, the reader gets the impression of actually being inside Frederick Douglass Elementary alongside of the students.
Adam Rex's writing skills in this book live up to the fantastic illustrations in every way. Bursting with personality, the text is at once heartfelt, humorous, and honest. With beautifully worded sentences like "then they came, the children did, and there were more of them than the school could possibly have imagined", this book is simply made to be read aloud. Rex also demonstrates some clever wordplay throughout this story, my favorite being: "At three o'clock, the parents came to pick up the children. At three thirty, Janitor came to pick up the school". The personification of an elementary school is brilliantly executed here and readers of all ages will feel for Frederick Douglass as a sympathetic and entirely relatable character. After all, the point of view may be a new one, but these are some very real scenarios. Reading this book, readers will find that their inevitable feelings about school - excitement, apprehension, defiance, apathy - are all acknowledged. And they just might find themselves looking at their own school with a slightly different, and perhaps a more appreciative, perspective.
The experiences that our students will have in the next few weeks as summer turns into fall - be it their first ever day of school or just their first day of another year - will undeniably be diverse. All children come into the classroom with them their own knowledge, personality, opinions, and feelings. Some of them already love school. Some of them do not. Some of them love books and reading. Some of them do not. But the beauty of a new school year is that educators have a chance each September to give their students a new understanding of what school can mean for them. And with books like School's First Day of School, this process can begin on that very first read aloud.