These Tales Get Excited for School Days

Nov 01, 2023

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By Maria Russo

It’s time for school, and a boy can’t locate his socks, ball, book and so on. (Sound familiar?)This board book hits its mark wonderfully by turning that daily parenting quagmire into a graphically appealing seek-and-find adventure, with a clever lesson in colors thrown in. Light (“Swap!”), a master of pen and ink, adds one colored object to his retro-bold black lines on every page, asking his audience to track it down. On the last page the school bus arrives —yikes! — before the boy’s got hold of his lunchbox. Mom to the rescue.

18 pp. Candlewick. $6.99. (Board book; ages 2 - 5)

In this gentle, funny debut tale of helicopter parenting taken to its logical extreme, Benno, a dapper young bear, is excited about his first day of school, but Mom is having a tough time. Is that scenario a stab at reverse psychology aimed to help quell kids’ fear, or a social comment aimed at hoverers? Well, both. “Stay here with me, Benno!” she cries, then tries to get him to leave the playground because “I don’t know anyone here!” Krüse’s art, in bear-friendly shades of honey and moss, is as warm and balanced as Zepf’s story.

40 pp. Sterling. $14.95. (Picture book; ages 3 - 6)

The teacher in this amusing classroom story is named, ominously, Mr. Stricter, but he’s as tenderhearted as they come — which is a big problem when the class tadpole, Bruno, turns out to be a hippo. As Bruno wreaks havoc, Mr. Stricter showers him with praise. The children must get their teacher to wise up and show Bruno the door. Rissi (the “Anna, Banana” books), with her edge-of-grossout humor, and OHora (“Horrible Bear!”), with his giant-headed, candy-colored people, have over-the-top sensibilities that mesh fantastically.

32 pp. Disney-Hyperion. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 3 - 6)

For the ever-growing number of school-age twins, kindergarten is not just the start of elementary school, but the first real separation from their siblings. This reassuring debut feels up-to-date as it follows biracial twins named Dax and Zoe, used to going together “like peanut butter and jelly.” They zig and zag through believable emotional reactions to being in different classrooms on their first day of school. With calm white space and feathery but orderly lines, Abbott’s lovely colored-pencil art makes the schoolday seem like a breeze.

32 pp. Harper. $15.99. (Picture book; ages 4 - 6)

Zombie humor seems like a good match for first-day jitters. Witness a little green schoolgirl called Zombelina. The eager little undead dancer is back for her third book, and she waltzes right into her classroom ready for some clever rhyming action. She raises her hand, but it falls to the floor; she really puts her nose in a book. But she’s in better shape than a shy, blue ghoul named Morty, whom she reaches out to help. The Caldecott Honor-winning Idle’s (“Flora and the Flamingo”) art seems to glide and dance mischievously across the pages.

32 pp. Bloomsbury. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 4 - 8)

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