Our Children's Librarian columnist, Julie Booker, brings us a new view from the stacks every month.

*****

Hopscotch, by Mary Louise Gay, beautifully portrays a young child with first day jitters. In the beginning of the story, Ophelia is enamoured with the neighbour’s dog, Jackson, who runs back on forth on a leash in the yard all day. It’s Jackson she misses most as her family drives to their temporary home at a motel for their dad’s new job. Being an imaginative child (she asks her mother about school…will she learn how to fly or how to become invisible?) Ophelia imagines ominous rabbit clouds and witches cackling in flight (which turn out to be crows) on her way to school. To make matters worse, there is the ogre-like crossing guard and an overstimulating classroom run by the fairy princess-like teacher who speaks only French (which Ophelia knows not a word of). She closes her eyes in the corner (a good strategy for awhile), eventually coming out to draw and sketch a giant hopscotch in the yard for all to play on. For Kindergarten and up.

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A book fostering inclusion is More Than Words, So Many Ways to Say What We Mean, by Roz MacLean. It teaches acceptance of all the ways we communicate—facial expressions, writing (including Braille), typing, signing, pointing at symbols, sometimes just making sounds. People show us what they mean by making choices, moving, playing, building, wearing certain clothes, and in more obvious ways such as singing, drawing and painting. This is a good book to begin building classroom culture. A page near the end reads: “If Nathan is quiet do you think you could figure out a way to listen?” For Kindergarten and up.

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The Walking School Bus, by Aaron Friedland and Ndileka Mandela, illustrated by Andrew Jackson Obol, reminds us school is not a "given" everywhere in the world. Shaka and Nandi walk to school in Uganda with their dad but when he gets a job in a mine far away, they can’t go to school anymore. It’s unsafe for kids to walk alone because of the amasela (thieves). While bored at home, the kids dig up an old toy school bus and get the idea to sell junk to buy a real bus. When that doesn’t work, they try to make a bus, which also proves impossible. So they decide to be the bus, walking with other kids they meet along the way—“safety in numbers.” In the afterword, Julian Lennon tells a cool story about the birth of the White Feather Foundation which helps provide access to education to kids in remote places. This book has a great message about tenacity, problem solving and collaboration. For Kindergarten and up.

*

It’s September in the The Secret Life of Squirrels: Back to School, by Nancy Rose. Photographs of squirrels in miniature scenes feature Rosie (the squirrel) setting up her classroom for her new students. She and the school bus driver, Mr. Peanuts (also a squirrel), go school supply shopping, complete with mini shopping cart, tiny backpack, teeny textbooks and pencils. The two characters also appear in the classroom (seen posted on the bulletin board: “Raise your paw to speak.”), in gym and music classes (where the squirrel plays electric guitar), as well as in the community garden, and even the bathroom. A young reader can’t help but wonder how the live creatures are perfectly positioned in each scene. The afterword gives the answer: photographer Rose entices her characters into the scenes by using nuts. For preschool and Kindergarten.

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For preschoolers, 1, 2, 3, Off To School, by Marianne Dubuc, gives an overview of school with pictures reminiscent of Richard Scarry. Pom, curious about going to school next year, visits all the creatures at their schools in the forest. At mice school Pom sees morning routines, and in underground school, the rabbits learn math and reading. The frog pond is alive with arts activities and the foxes are busy with phys. ed. Routines/rules are often inserted as speech bubbles, for example, one fox tells another to tie their shoe before playing, and to drink water. There’s nap time with the sloths, STEM with the squirrels, library with the wolves, and end-of-day routines with the turtles. It’s fun to pick out one creature on each page that doesn’t belong or a story character out of context, i.e. Goldilocks on the bear page.

*

Teaching Mrs. Muddle, by Colleen Nelson, with illustrations by Alice Carter, follows a nervous Kayla on the first day of kindergarten. When her teacher mixes up name tags, reads a book upside down, confuses the library for the gym, and can’t find the music room, Kayla realizes Mrs. Muddle is even more lost than the kids. By taking control and teaching Mrs. Muddle some things (for example, how to go down the slide and swing at recess) Kayla finds herself at the end of the day without her worries. Mrs. Muddle has successfully distracted her students. For Kindergarten.

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The Day My Mom Came to Kindergarten, by Maureen Fergus, illustrated by Mike Lowery, also features a little girl who ends up teaching a grownup (her mom) how to adhere to classroom rules, such as waiting her turn, cleaning up after herself and not talking out. The girl’s frustration with her mom shifts to empathy over the course of the day and the mom eventually gets on board with how things run. Delightful pictures go with this child-centric version of how things should go in school. For Kindergarten.

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My Teacher’s Not Here, by Lana Button and Christine Battuz, is a great way to prepare students for a substitute teacher. Change his hard. When Miss Seabrooke is away, all the animals are upset. Similar to the previous two titles, the main character deals with the stress by helping somebody else, this time the supply teacher, Mr. Omar the bumbling giraffe. The students also learn to rely on one another; the rhyming text reads: “My thermos unsticks/ thanks to Gertie’s strong grip./ And with two yanks from Yancy,/ my jacket is zipped.” For Kindergarten.

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On her first day as teacher-librarian, Julie Booker was asked by a five-year-old if that was her real name. She's felt at home in libraries since her inaugural job as a Page in the Toronto Public Library. She is the author of Up Up Up, a book of short stories published by House of Anansi Press.