By Natasha Wing
Backpacks, butterflies, and no sleep on the eve of kindergarten — all set to the singsong of 'The Night Before Christmas,' with the grown-ups doing the crying.
It follows the exact meter of 'The Night Before Christmas,' but the big night here is the one before kindergarten starts. A houseful of children pack their backpacks, lay out first-day clothes, and are far too keyed up to sleep. Morning comes, the bus pulls up, and there's a wobbly moment at drop-off with a few teary faces. Then the joke lands: the children dive straight into the fun of school, and it's the parents left sniffling at the classroom door. Wing keeps the rhyme close enough that you can practically sing it.
The worry a child carries into the first day gets wrapped in a tune almost everyone already knows, which makes it easy to read again and again without it wearing thin. Nerves show up, then pass, and the day goes fine. Turning the tears onto the grown-ups is the reassuring part done sideways: your child gets to be the brave one and laugh at the criers. I'd read it the night before, then tuck it into a first-day gift bag.