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ON THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

Name: ON THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL
Author: Maggie C. Rudd
ISBN: 9780374391454

by Maggie C. Rudd ; illustrated by Taia Morley ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 25, 2025

An upbeat tribute to the culmination of a busy school year.

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School’s (almost) out for summer!

There’s no shortage of books designed to help prepare youngsters for their first day of school, but far fewer celebrate the end of the year. Here we see the bustle and buzz of a day both ordinary and extraordinary as a classroom of children get ready for summer break. Though the youngsters follow familiar routines—awakening with the ringing of an alarm clock, eating breakfast, boarding the bus—they’re greeted by balloons and a banner at school. Readers are invited to reminisce about the past year: “You remember how nervous / and excited you felt. / Now you have a whole year of learning under your belt.” While the rhyme scheme is uneven, the images and words work well together to present a joyfully realistic representation of the cheerful chaos of early-elementary education. Particularly effective are the illustrations that juxtapose the normalcy of a school day with the transience of the end of the school year: “The bulletin boards are emptied. / The art’s taken down,” but the students still have work to do! Kids who haven’t yet experienced the last day of school will appreciate a glimpse at what they might expect, while more seasoned children will enjoy looking back on hugs and field days past. Morley’s soft-hued illustrations depict a loving, diverse community.

An upbeat tribute to the culmination of a busy school year. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 25, 2025

ISBN: 9780374391454

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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by Maggie C. Rudd ; illustrated by Elisa Chavarri

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by Maggie C. Rudd

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by Maggie C. Rudd ; illustrated by Elisa Chavarri

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LOVE FROM THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2015

Safe to creep on by.

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Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.

In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.

Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)

Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?
edited by Eric Carle

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edited by Eric Carle

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by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)