By: Holly Snyder Thompson, The Avid Reader
Fellow parents! Here we are, back to school again. Whether you love it or hate it, it’s time to prepare ourselves and our kids for the Great Annual Transition. You’ve got a lot to think about – growth spurts (new shoes, again!?), healthy lunches (leftover pizza and some baby carrots, right?) and managing anxieties about new schools, new teachers, new peer relationships. We’re here to make that last bit a little easier for you.
It’s REAL hard to go from “Did you brush your teeth? Do you have your lunch? Put on your shoes!” in the blur of getting out the door to suddenly navigating statements like “No one says my name right”, “Last year that boy called me ‘cringe’” and “I can’t eat when I’m at school”. We all do our best to talk to our kids about their concerns and questions before big transitions, but honestly we can all use some help from the poets and artists. My favorite tool for jump-starting these conversations are books.
I remember my mother reading Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day when I was a child and relating so hard to poor Alexander and his sub-par shoes and his gummed-up hair and his best friend’s betrayal and his dream to move to Australia. Being able to empathize with Alexander, even though he was fictional, helped on days when school was the absolute worst.
If Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day is too “cringe” for your kids, the great news is that authors and illustrators have kept writing since the 80’s and we have libraries and bookstores filled with updated books that can help kids identify and express their feelings about school.
Four exceptional titles are highlighted here. These social-emotional focused books will prime your children to examine their concerns and start getting excited about experiencing new things. They will give your family shared language and allow you as parents to practice your responses early and often. Come on down to The Avid Reader during the month of August for these titles and more which can be found on our back to school display! Our website will also feature a Back to School reading list to make online shopping easier.
The Nervous Dragon by DK
This adorable board book features a young dragon named Blaze starting school for the first time, deeply concerned that he can’t breathe fire yet. What will his classmates and teacher think of him? Blaze discovers that all the other young dragons are struggling too and that school is where you go to learn hard things. This book also has a cool lenticular cover for extra interest.
The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson
It’s not easy to take those first steps into a place where nobody really knows you yet, but somehow you do it. The Day You Begin reminds children that we all feel like outsiders sometimes—and how brave it is to enter those spaces anyway. And that sometimes, when we reach out and begin to share our stories, others will be happy to meet us halfway. The prose and art in this book are gorgeous. Fair warning: this one had me near tears.
A Kids Book about Empathy by Daron K. Roberts
I could not be a bigger fan of the A Kids Book About series. These books cover a wide range of topics (empathy, anxiety, disability, white privilege, divorce—just to name a few) and are beautifully designed and written to open up conversation between children and the adults in their lives. A Kids Book About Empathy is perfect for a wide range of ages and provides step-by-step instructions on how to demonstrate empathy to your friends.
The Insiders by Mark Oshiro
For your middle grade children (typically 4th-8th grade), The Insiders is a story about Héctor Muñoz, a boy who feels alone at his new school. When he hides in the janitor’s closet one day he finds himself connected to two separate schools in different parts of the country! He enters a life-changing year full of friendship, adventure, and just a little bit of magic. Oshiro is deft at portraying the emotional complexity of pre-teens and teens in ways that feel both real and fun.
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PS: We know that shopping for books online and at big box stores is often more accessible for a variety of reasons. However, if you are able, we encourage you to shop at your local independent bookstore. Your business boosts the local economy, provides fair salaries for local workers and allows us to continue to create a space in our community for discovery and a love of reading!
