First Grade Drop Out

Reviewed by: Sally Holt - Raymond Village Library, Raymond, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: October 10, 2015

Review

First grade can be tough and gets particularly challenging for this first grade, little boy, when he accidentally calls his teacher, "mommy" and becomes the laughing stock of the whole class. Even his best friend, Tyler laughs. Although his teacher reassures him this happens every year it does not reassure him.

To deal with the embarassment, he comes up with strategies. He pretends he is someone else and from another country, that he is a magician with a magic hat and that he is going to board a time machine to take him back before he made this classroom mistake. His friend, Tyler, eventually shows up and makes a mistake of his own. Tyler asks his friend on the basketball court if he wants to do "junk" shots.

I open one eye. "It's not a junk shot. It's a jump shot." "Oh," Tyler says.

They chuckle together and decide that maybe "junk" shot isn't such a bad way to describe "jump" shot and all is forgotten.

The illustrations are done in ink and watercolor and the messiness of the expressive drawings clearly show the range of emotions.

A great book for first graders to let them know that everyone makes mistakes and that mistakes can be forgotten and maybe even sort of funny.

Overall Book Score: very good