Posted by School’s First Day of School by Adam Rex and art by Christian Robinson (2016)
Summary: School is getting ready for the first day of school. It goes from quiet to full of kids and lots of new things and big emotions: curious, uncomfortable, nervous, and in the end, pretty lucky.
What I Enjoyed
➡️ Unique Hook: An anthropomorphic school with the first-day jitters? Yes and yes. I imagine this probably a what if question turned into a story.
➡️ Kid-Relatable: School has a mish-mash of feelings just like kids have on their first day of school. It doesn’t go perfectly, either. In true Adam Rexian fashion, there’s a moment with a water fountain that feels so honest to a child’s experience.
➡️ Humor: Rex and Robinson combine forces with words and art to deliver small humorous moments without distracting from the real story. Aidens and nose milk, anybody?
Mentor Text Moments
➡️ For Authors: Narrative Arc Crash Course. There are so many structures packed into the story. We see morning to evening. We see empty, full, empty. But mostly, we can trace the emotional arc from nervous to pretty lucky.
➡️ For Authors: A+ Pacing. The story’s setup slowly unfolds. On the title page, we see a construction site. School is born, gets a name, and has a caretaker in Janitor. It takes five spreads to start the first day. With every page turn during the setup, the tension rises because we know School has a big day ahead.
➡️ For Illustrators: Art Master Class. I admit, I picked this book because I wanted to learn how to tell a visual story with an inanimate object. There was plenty of visual rhythm: anthropomorphic school shots, close up and wide angles, and unique view points. Even if School wasn’t present, they were part of the scene through the the colors and visual images associated with the tiles on their front door.
➡️ For Illustrators: Specific Details = Universal Appeal. Robinson uses suggests such a specific place in the school from shiny gum floors to the circle rugs and fences around the playground that I’m sure most readers can point out something they see in their own school.