Summary
It's the first day of school, and Emily and her friends are welcomed into the exciting world of kindergarten by Miss Cribbage. The first day marks the beginning of a whole year's worth of new experiences and discoveries: learning the alphabet, drawing a map, counting to ten, telling the time and temperature, and more. It's also about sharing happy holidays, noticing the changing seasons, taking a class trip to the local library, learning about the community beyond the classroom, and bringing all the new skills home to share with family. Organized into monthly segments and chock-full of stunning artwork, this one-of-a-kind complete kindergarten book offers parents, teachers, and children a special way to share the most important school year in a child's life.
Author Notes
Rosemary Wells was born in New York City on January 29, 1943. She studied at the Museum School in Boston. Without her degree, she left school at the age of 19 to get married. She began her career in publishing, working as an art editor and designer first at Allyn and Bacon and later at Macmillan Publishing.
She is an author and illustrator of over 60 books for children and young adults. Her first book was an illustrated edition of Gilbert and Sullivan's I Have a Song to Sing-O. Her other works include Martha's Birthday, The Fog Comes on Little Pig Feet, Unfortunately Harriet, Mary on Horseback, and Timothy Goes to School. She also created the characters of Max and Ruby, Noisy Nora, and Yoko, which are featured in some of her books. She has won numerous awards including a Children's Book Council Award for Noisy Nora in 1974, the Edgar Allan Poe award for two young adult books, Through the Looking Glass and When No One Was Looking, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Shy Charles.
(Bowker Author Biography)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-Emily and her classmates are back, and children follow them throughout their kindergarten year through charming vignettes and enchanting illustrations. Each oversized spread offers a learning experience, whether readers are singing number songs with Emily and Diane Duck, making Valentine cakes with Emily and her mother, or hearing about the voting process. "`We vote,' says Grandpa, `in order to try and make more good things than bad things happen in our world.'" Miss Cribbage inspires her students to learn about the world around them in innovative ways. For example, the class creates a "Museum of Things" where they put tiny treasures or waylaid pieces into boxes that they label as animal, vegetable, or mineral. The corresponding photographs of the items against a stark white background face humorous pictures of students dressed as an animal, mineral, or vegetable. The book is lighthearted and full of caring detail, warm expressions, and explosions of color. In addition to being about that wonderful first year of school, Kindergarten serves as a celebration of family and community, reminding readers that the school day extends far beyond the borders of the classroom walls. This is Wells at her best.-Lisa Gangemi Kropp, Middle Country Public Library, Centereach, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The plainspoken bunny heroine of Emily's First 100 Days of School describes a kindergarten year (separated in "chapters" designated by month) in Wells's informative and reassuring picture book, illustrated with her characteristic panels and spreads of well-dressed animal characters. With the other intrepid youngsters on Cranberry Island, Maine, Emily is entrusted to Miss Cribbage, who, as in the previous book, proves an ideal teacher. Reinforcing educational concepts, the spreads will probably also echo the real adventures of kindergartner readers, while giving preschoolers an exciting preview: families attend Back to School Night; students record the weather, learn how to measure, and even pull together in a community effort to support a local business. Miss Cribbage's classroom might inspire real-world teachers: in November, the class names a schoolyard tree and writes a poem: "Doris O'Maple loves winter/ Her branches are covered with ice./ They snap and they tap on the windowpane./ Like hundreds of scampering mice." Sharp readers who have pored over Emily's First 100 Days will deduce that Kindergarten is a prequel; however, they may also be puzzled, given that the two titles feature the same cast in what seems like the same classroom, but the locale is identified differently. Visually, the title is less cohesive than Days; rendered in a range of media, the compositions vary in detail and characters can look inconsistent. All in all, however, the richness of the concepts and the vibrancy of the presentation make this a winner. Wells magnificently conveys how kindergarten feels intellectually: as if a whole world of important learning suddenly opened up. Ages 3-6. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Primary) Emily, a little rabbit-child, is starting kindergarten at Cranberry Island School. Like many children setting off on the road to ""real school,"" she's a little anxious, but Mama is there to hold her hand. Wells draws on many iconic images of kindergarten--first-day jitters, library visits, back-to-school night, the spring concert--as well as traditional subjects such as numbers, letters, patterns, weather, and measurement (each month has its own unit of study). On the surface, this appears to be a standard journal of a kindergarten year (albeit one offering plenty of opportunity for reader involvement), but it is more than that. Miss Cribbage is another fine example of a teacher who knows her children and organizes her class in a humane way. Odysseus, Terrance, Diane, Emily, Martha, Otto, Louise, and Roger enter school as strangers and leave as trusted friends. Just as Miss Cribbage dots her charges' day with poetry and music, Wells decorates the pages with an ever-diverting array of pictures, from tender portraits to lively tableaux to respectful approximations of child art. By June, when Emily is nearly ready for first grade, she has begun to branch out from her family and into the world. This treat of an off-to-school book will fit into any kindergartner's backpack. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Emily the gray bunny, star of Emily's First 100 Days of School (2000), returns as the main character of this month-by-month look at the kindergarten school year. Emily and her friends have the same understanding teacher, Miss Cribbage, so this volume appears to be a prequel to the previous Emily story. In this work, each spread covers a different aspect of life at school or home, including all sorts of basic information that kindergarten children might learn, from obvious lessons on letters, numbers, science, and music to more subtle wisdom, such as thinking globally (singing a peace song) and acting locally (buying jam from a local producer). All the familiar elements of the school day and school year are included, but the unflappable Miss Cribbage wins extra points as a wise teacher for also taking her students out into the world, to clean up the beach and visit their special friends at a retirement home. Wells continues to create appealing animal characters with endearing expressions, charming clothing, and irresistible personalities. She also shows great empathy toward the emotional lives of young children and respect for the transformative power of parents, teachers, and communities. (Picture book. 4-6) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
PreS-K. With Wells' signature blend of tenderness, realism, and fun, this large picture book packs in a wealth of information, story, and playful rhyme about the first year of school. Much more than the usual short, welcoming introduction to the classroom, this is a detailed overview of things to learn and exciting goings-on, both at school and at home. Emily, the small rabbit from the counting book Emily's First 100 Days of School 0 (2000), describes how she and her animal classmates learn from their kind teacher. Each double-page spread introduces one subject--from time and measurement to words, music, patterns, and fascinating stuff about science, geography, and community. The class celebrates Columbus Day, Thanksgiving (everyone gives thanks for something), Christmas, and Kwanzaa (no Ramadan, though), and through the seasons the children reach out from their school on Cranberry Island, Maine, to places across the world. The pupils are reminiscent of Wells' beloved picture-book characters in their expressions and fusion of animal and human body language, and Wells has made room for individual differences (Roger the puppy doesn't want0 to widen his horizons) and for failure (Emily messes up in math, but she's thrilled when she overcomes her fear and recites a simple poem). So many uses for teachers; fun for children; and great for parent-child sharing. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2004 Booklist