Kids Book Review:
Kitty's First Day of School
Kitty's Fist Day of School, by Sarah Linx, presents great content that accurately depicts school routines to ease anxiety of preschool aged children who are soon entering the school system, but we were not fans of the art style.
I agreed to review this book since my son loves reading. He's eight, special needs, and dislikes the school environment, so I thought any book that can portray it in a more positive light could help. His review of the book was that it was a "good story," but it "stopped rhyming," and the "pictures look fake." His disjointed short review deserves some examination.
I like to get the negatives out of the way first: rhyme and illustrations. The first few pages of the book do rhyme and that rhyme drops after that. I didn't notice until my child pointed it out, so he's being a bit too detail-oriented. The illustrations for both of us were problematic. I believe the art style is supposed to look like a child is doing the illustrations and is in the medium of what looks like magic marker. That style was unnerving to my son, but for me was simply not my taste. The style can be pulled off well, like in the Pete the Cat series, but for me, these did not seem as professionally done. I will admit our bias here as well: my husband has a degree in illustration, so we are used to realistic, heavily detailed illustrations. Despite the hangup on style, they are well executed without the marker "overlap" kids do, so time and effort were put into them. The colors are vibrant, eye-catching, and draw you in.
Onto the "good story" parts. The story itself takes an extensive step-by-step trip through the day of school in your average kindergarten classroom. Each subject is visited, a worksheet is shown, and other need-to-know concepts are included. We both found it factual and entertaining. The dialogue was nice and added personality to it. It is a great guide and book to share to preschool aged kids before their first day of school. Knowing what will come will lessen the fear for most kids. I truly wish I had a book like this before my son went to preschool. It might've spared him some tears. Parents don't often know or remember what our elementary school schedules were like. This preparatory book can help parents too, so they can envision what their kids are up to all day.
Despite our hangups on the illustrations' art style, the content alone makes this a must-read to prepare kids for school. Particularly because of the pandemic, they can learn what it should and hopefully will return to one day.
If interested in purchasing, you can find it here.