The Class

Twenty different children go through the different stages of getting dressed and ready for the first day of school. They don’t know they will become one class, yet many of their experiences mirror one another. Ashburn’s rhyming text rollicks along with the children’s varied emotional states: “Four are eager, up since dawn. / Three just sit / and yawn / and yawn. / Some are grumpy. / Some keep sleeping. / They don’t hear the clock beep-beep-ing!” The diverse group of kids run the gamut from excited to fearful, focused to distracted, and Gee shows them in vignettes that capture their uniqueness. The pencil and digitally colored illustrations offer lots of detail, often putting several characters alongside one another so readers can contrast their concurrent experiences—take; for example, the full page of kids’ socks, some matching, some not so much. Though individual kids are shown having a difficult time, everyone eventually arrives at school and, at the end, seems content to be part of a class. — Stephanie Seales