Books About Going to School
It is going back to school season in the U.S. When I was growing up, the first day of school used to land sometime after Labor Day. For my kids, they still start this week. However, there are many local schools who have already been in session for several weeks.
Here are some of our favorite going back to school or school-related picture books:
The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn, Illustrated by Ruth E. Harper and Nancy M. Leak
Now, I will admit that I would have preferred it if the artwork featured an animal other than raccoons, even if they are beautifully rendered. In fact, I often wonder if that's what the author had in mind, or if they just had to accept what the illustrator wanted. (Though I may be biased as there is a raccoon currently living in our attic that my husband is trying to humanely dispose of--this raccoon has been waking me up at 3 or 4 in the morning.) Either way, Little Lion Bookworm loves this book. When she was in pre-K, her teacher read it to the class on the first day of school. Since then, Little Lion often aggressively offers me her hands before we say goodbye at the school gate. (Read: I often dodge being smacked in the nose and then quickly kiss her hand before the next one comes toward my face.) I admit it though; I love the sentiment, and I love Little Lion's tradition, and I love that the author thought of saying that the kisses can't be washed away during the day! Brilliant.
If You Take a Mouse to School by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond
We adore this series. I can't even decide which one we like the best but it might be If You Give a Pig a Party because I love the moon bounce illustration plus we love hunting for all the hidden animals on the hide-and-seek page. In this particular book, mouse goes to school with his boy. Chaos ensues, of course. My lovely sister-in-law gave this book to Mini Me Bookworm when she was 3. And I may or may not have written a 'rip-off' of this series as a Shutterfly picture book for my husband about our eldest daughter. :D
I am Too Absolutely Small for School by Lauren Child. I don't know how we don't own this book as we have a lot of the Charlie and Lola books and I adore them. (We also have the DVDs. We're Anglophiles. Clearly. Ask all my English friends.) I love the paper collages throughout this series and I love quirky Lola and her almost always patient older brother Charlie.
Other Going to School/back to school books:
(Please note that I haven't read these books but they look promising. And a lot of them come with activity sheets to help prepare a new kindergartner.)
Sidenote: The thumbnail image for this post was produced using Lego Minifigures and a Playmobil school kit. Plus my trusty bookworm that some of you may recognize as Bea Spells-a-Lot's sidekick from Lalaloopsy. Please note that the chalkboard was in use for my kids' Elvendale area and I think it is instructing the students to "Learn the 2 times tables and the 10 times tables." And, yes, the students are celebrity students, also known as Princess Leia and Harry Potter.
For the older kids, I was going to add a section of books where the main character goes to a new school, but we may look no further than Harry Potter himself! Here are a few others:
