By Adam Rex
A back-to-school book that flips the fear onto the building: it's the school that's brand-new and nervous, worrying whether the children will even like it.
A school gets built over the summer. A janitor named Janitor is the first one inside it, and when he mentions that soon it'll be full of children, the building panics a little — it has no idea what a child even is. Then the first day arrives and the school watches its students the way students usually watch a school. Some come in crying. Some are brave. One boy announces he already hates school, which the building takes personally. But as the day goes on it starts to enjoy the noise and the wiggling, and it's proud when a shy girl finally works up the nerve to answer a question. By the last bell it's already looking forward to tomorrow.
The nervous one here isn't your child, it's the school, and that hands a worried five- or six-year-old something to do besides worry. They get to feel sorry for a big brick building that's scared of them, and it's hard to stay scared of a place while you're busy reassuring it. The humor is dry rather than sugary, which helps with a child who's aged out of the softest first-day books but still gets butterflies. Christian Robinson's flat, bright shapes keep the whole thing from tipping into anything too earnest.