Little School by Beth Norling Preschool 32 pages Kane/Miller March 2003 Hardcover     Beth Norling’s Little School has wonderful intentions as it tries to appease the fears of children heading to their first day of school. With broad strokes, the author presents a picture of what may occur as a child wakes up, get ready for school, attends a full day, and heads home. The problem is that the book tries to tackle too many parts of the day, introduces too many words, and fails to provide anything even resembling a story to maintain the interest of a child. The book is more chaotic than instructive and not likely to be the most entertaining choice for your child. Approximately every other page of this book is divided into 20 squares, each with an illustration and written word relating to something loosely connected to a particular event. Again, the problem is that the book tries to cover too much, resulting in inadequate coverage of anything at all. For example, as the children travel to school, the illustrations include a train, bus, and boat - along with a piggyback ride, flying, skipping, and a horse. On other pages, it seems like the author is desperate to find items to fill the boxes to complete her illustration. For example, as the children play, readers come across words such as “jigsaw puzzles” and “beads”, along with “felt farm animals,” a “magnetic alphabet” and a “nail board.” These are certainly not the types of activities universally present in classrooms, nor are they words that would be a priority for someone working with young children as they embark on the learning process. It is unclear whether this book is intended to be a story told by words or through illustrations. By failing to make this determination and trying to tackle both, it ends up doing neither successfully, leaving the reader just as unsettled and confused as the author must have been as she penned this book.   web reviews   Lori West/2007 for curled up with a good kid's book   For grown-up fiction, nonfiction and speculative fiction book reviews, visit our sister site Curled Up With a Good Book (www.curledup.com)