Although summer is just edging on getting started, some kids are already school dreaming. Today's read is for those kids...or even the ones who will be hitting the classroom for the first time and can hardly wait. I'm hoping it's a read full of positive vibes and, maybe, handles anticipation stress or something?
Who knows. But we're ready to find out!
AND THEN COMES SCHOOL
by Tom Brenner
Illustrated by Jen Hill
Candlewick
Picture Book
32 pages
ages 4 to 8
AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK ON JULY 1st!!!
Joyful anticipation is in the air as a child observes cues that the first day of school is coming soon.
Cooler mornings, cicadas buzzing, apples ripening . . . can shopping for school supplies be far behind? The evening before the first day means laying out your outfit, loading up your backpack, and filling a lunch box with your favorite things. When the alarm goes off, there’s Dad’s extra-special breakfast (and, of course, some picture-taking), then the feeling of bubbly excitement as you and your friends climb onto a bus, ready to see your new classroom and meet your teacher. Whether the reader is a child who is eager to return to school or a younger one trying to imagine what school is like, this upbeat and lyrical ode—the fourth in the And Then Comes series—holds sure appeal for returning students and first-timers alike.
Cooler mornings, cicadas buzzing, apples ripening . . . can shopping for school supplies be far behind? The evening before the first day means laying out your outfit, loading up your backpack, and filling a lunch box with your favorite things. When the alarm goes off, there’s Dad’s extra-special breakfast (and, of course, some picture-taking), then the feeling of bubbly excitement as you and your friends climb onto a bus, ready to see your new classroom and meet your teacher. Whether the reader is a child who is eager to return to school or a younger one trying to imagine what school is like, this upbeat and lyrical ode—the fourth in the And Then Comes series—holds sure appeal for returning students and first-timers alike.
MY TIDBITS
With lyrical swing, these pages lead eager school-goers through the summer and into the approaching school year.
From the early summer, this book guides through various activities kids often enjoy and showcases certain moments (like making jelly) to illustrate how time progresses until Fall comes again. And with it, a new school year. Each page holds several, short lines, which fit the intended reader age group and bring across the atmosphere of the passing summer well. Each moment holds family or friendships and presents each moment with excitement and joy. When the kids enter the school and find their classrooms, it gives a sense of stability and rounds off everything nicely.
This makes a nice read-aloud for group and individual settings, and works well for quieter moments to let the atmosphere sink in. The rhyming lines flow smoothly and bring across the emotions that come with them. Depending on the listener, some scenes will come across with more familiarity than others, but there is something for most readers to identify with and relate to. It works especially well for those, who are looking forward to the new school year.
And here he is...
My life as a writer might have started at age thirteen, reading historical novels. I remember thinking how neat that would be to tell stories of the past, to be there in my imagination. The first story I remember writing was about a contemporary kid taking a bath. He pulled the plug and went down the drain. I can’t remember if that was the beginning or the ending.
After college, I wore black turtleneck sweaters and asked what the meaning of a flower was and thought that would make me a writer. I owned a typewriter. In those days the closest I got was a job as an advertising copywriter. I was writing and being paid for it. After ten years of that, I became an elementary-school teacher, thinking I had the summers to write. But it turned out that with three children, trips, backyard chickens, dogs, a house, and a garden, the summers just flew by.
After I retired from teaching, I finally began to write. And I submitted what I wrote. And I got rejection after rejection. So I went back to school, to a course at the University of Washington — Writing for Children. And after all those years of assigning homework to fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, it seems only fitting that my book about Halloween came out of a homework assignment.
No doubt growing up in Ohio, where autumn bursts with color and bright leaves drifted to the ground, and going to college at the University of North Carolina, where the fall colors were intense and lasted a long time, laid a foundation for the idea of my book. But more powerful were the memories of the excitement my own kids and my students had weeks before Halloween, talking about costume ideas, and then going out on that one very special night to rule the streets, looking for candy—and the word spreading faster than light of where the full-size candy bars were.
Three Things You Might Not Know About Me:
1. I was a Sugar Plum Fairy in a water ballet, a production of the UNC swim team.
2. I lasted one day as a door-to-door salesman at a time when I really needed a job.
3. From age six on, my cousin Bill and I were going to own a Montana horse ranch until years later I realized I was a little scared of horses—they are beautiful, but so big!
After college, I wore black turtleneck sweaters and asked what the meaning of a flower was and thought that would make me a writer. I owned a typewriter. In those days the closest I got was a job as an advertising copywriter. I was writing and being paid for it. After ten years of that, I became an elementary-school teacher, thinking I had the summers to write. But it turned out that with three children, trips, backyard chickens, dogs, a house, and a garden, the summers just flew by.
After I retired from teaching, I finally began to write. And I submitted what I wrote. And I got rejection after rejection. So I went back to school, to a course at the University of Washington — Writing for Children. And after all those years of assigning homework to fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, it seems only fitting that my book about Halloween came out of a homework assignment.
No doubt growing up in Ohio, where autumn bursts with color and bright leaves drifted to the ground, and going to college at the University of North Carolina, where the fall colors were intense and lasted a long time, laid a foundation for the idea of my book. But more powerful were the memories of the excitement my own kids and my students had weeks before Halloween, talking about costume ideas, and then going out on that one very special night to rule the streets, looking for candy—and the word spreading faster than light of where the full-size candy bars were.
Three Things You Might Not Know About Me:
1. I was a Sugar Plum Fairy in a water ballet, a production of the UNC swim team.
2. I lasted one day as a door-to-door salesman at a time when I really needed a job.
3. From age six on, my cousin Bill and I were going to own a Montana horse ranch until years later I realized I was a little scared of horses—they are beautiful, but so big!
