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Summary
Summary
It's just ten days before kindergarten, and this little girl has heard all there is to know--from a first grader --about what it's going to be like. You can't bring your cat, you can't bring a stuffed animal, and the number one rule? You can't ask anyone for help. Ever. So what do you do when your shoes come untied, if you're the only one in the class who doesn't know how to tie them up again?
Told with gentle humor by Alison McGhee and brought to exuberant life by New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss, this lighthearted take on pre-kindergarten anxiety will bring a smile to the face of every child--and parent--having first-day jitters.
Author Notes
Alison McGhee lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
She is the recipient of a Loft-McKnight Fellowship, a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, a 1995 Editor's Fiction Prize from Snake nation, and a Pushcart Prize honorable mention. Her title Bink and Gollie, Two for One with Kate DiCamillo made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2012.
(Publisher Provided)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-K-Through the grapevine, an about-to-be kindergartner learns that there are lots of rules at school. Rules #3 and #2 prevent students from bringing stuffed animals or their cats to class. Rule #1 is a bit more serious. "You have to know how to tie your shoes. By yourself. You're not allowed to ask for help. Ever." Even a child who can count backward from 10 or feed her cat by herself can feel inadequate. As the 10 days before school wind down, she worries that she will be labeled "Velcro Girl" and finds endless ways to cover the gap in her skills through the destruction of her shoes and/or laces. Bliss presents the heroine with large-eyed innocence and humorous details. The pace varies nicely with changes in font size, full- and partial-page illustrations, speech balloons, and a daily countdown toward the big day. A strong dose of adult patience and a bit of peer support round out this youngster's first educational challenge.-Mary Elam, Forman Elementary School, Plano, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Ten days before kindergarten starts, a dark-haired girl wakes up in a panic. "I've heard from a first grader that they have a lot of rules there," she confides, locking eyes with the audience. "You have to know how to tie your shoes. By yourself." Days nine, eight, seven and so on bring various shoelace disasters. The girl tangles the laces around her cat by accident; she drenches them with syrup on purpose. At dinner, her father jokes, "How's your bowl of shoelaces I mean spaghetti?" If all the girl's fears are for naught, at least they provide her with a conversation opener: at kindergarten, she commiserates with one, then two, then three new friends who can't tie their shoes either. In this witty children's debut, novelist McGhee (Rainlight) combines a puckishly structured counting book like Peggy Rathmann's Ten Minutes Till Bedtime with an amiable exploration of new-school anxiety. Bliss (Which Would You Rather Be?) makes skillful use of voice bubbles and cartoon gestures, surrounding the narrator with a teddy bear, a rag doll and a sympathetic, precocious tabby that recalls the bookish dog he created for A Fine, Fine School. Subtle details surface with every rereading. Ages 3-7. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
A girl approaches kindergarten with trepidation because she can't tie her own shoes (she has heard that knowing how is Rule #1). She spends ten days alternately hiding her shoelaces and practicing loop, pull around, poke, and pull. The girl's true-to-childhood obsession is humorously played out in bold, cartoonlike illustrations; thought and dialogue balloons effectively augment the first-person narration. From HORN BOOK Spring 2003, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
McGhee debuts for children with a very funny story about a girl who tries desperately to cope with not knowing how to tie her shoes. She's been told that this is a requirement for kindergartners, but she just can't get the knack. So she tries to rid herself of the problem: ditching her shoes in a haystack (her mother finds them, "Looky here-the missing shoes and that needle I've been searching for!"), trying to feed them to the cat, and deploying one as a bath toy. But they are always returned to her. Despite her parents reassurance that many five-year-olds can't do this either, all she can picture is a phalanx of teachers droning: "Once again: You can't ask us for help. Ever. Never." If she tries to run a scam with laceless shoes, she knows she'll pay the piper-"I'm sorry," she imagines her teacher saying, "Baby shoe-wearers have to take rest time in the sub-basement. Good Luck." Or worse yet, she'll have to wear a sandwich board broadcasting the news that she is "Velcro Girl." Then the big day comes-her shoes neatly tied by her parents-and she learns that most of her comrades haven't got the goods on their shoelaces. Laughter as antidote to worry works wonders. Most inspired is Bliss's (Which Would You Rather Be?, p. 668, etc) layout: illustrations, usually divided into half-pages, march the story along to present the thrumming drama as the day draws near. His big-eyed little girl shares the panic with her cat, whose face reflects hers until "Two days before kindergarten," when he's seen sleeping in earmuffs to drown her out. Her narrative is set in standard type, but the wittiest of comments appear in balloons tying up the laughter. (Picture book. 3-7)
Booklist Review
PreS.^-K. These books offer different, but complementary, views of the kindergarten experience. The first deals with a child's anxieties before starting school; the second celebrates the experience of a happy kindergarten class. In Countdown, the narrator is so worried that she can't yet tie her shoes and so unnerved by the bogus kindergarten rules she has heard from a first-grader that she suffers mightily during the 10 days before school starts. Tying lessons from her father, a spaghetti dinner--nothing seems to help until she goes to school and discovers that most of the other kindergartners can't tie their laces either. The sly humor in both the first-person narrative and the speech-balloon comments is amplified in the expressive, ink-and-watercolor illustrations by New Yorker cartoonist Bliss. The deadpan and (occasionally) over-the-top wit makes this a terrific choice for reading aloud. And even if young children won't get the reference to Phoebe Caulfield for another dozen years, it won't diminish their empathy for the child's anxiety, their pleasure in her relief, or their enjoyment of this funny picture book. As bright and cheerful as a new box of crayons, Rogers' simple offering follows a kindergarten class through 26 days of the year: A day, B day, and so on, down the alphabet. In this multiracial class, led by one of the few black, male teachers in picture books, the children participate in alphabetically linked activities from acorn gathering to a zoo trip. The same children reappear in the appealing paintings, which illustrate the sometimes quiet, sometimes exuberant activities of this happy classroom. Parents and kindergarten teachers will find this a well-designed alphabet book that lists things to look for on each page: "railroad tracks / rugs / ruler." Preschoolers will be intrigued to see what kindergartners actually do all day. --Carolyn Phelan
