Horn Book Review
The premise of a new kindergartner describing her worries in her own words could easily lead to the cuteness of kids saying the darnedest things. But Portis avoids such first-person pitfalls with the plain and plausible voice of Annalina ("I don't want to go to Big School with big kids") and by letting the illustrations do the emotional heavy lifting. Annalina's concerns that her teacher will be scary are accompanied by a fierce vision of a monster made of graph paper and numbers, spewing out the alphabet, crowned with a Medusa mane of writhing pencils. The usual anxieties of kindergarten-wearing the right clothes and speaking up at show-and-tell-are accompanied by more original microplots such as negotiating a three-way friendship, imaginative play involving the monkey bars, and a hair-cutting scene whose punchline lies in a picture. Portis gives her coloring book-style illustrations an extra tactile dimension with the selective use of collage. Small areas of fabric and background photographs also provide a "find the real thing" game for the young reader. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
An exuberant little girl delivers a day-by-day (and sometimes half-daybyhalf-day) account of her first month in kindergarten. From apprehension ("I don't want to go to Big School with big kids. What if they're mean?") through acclimation ("Annalina takes too many letters! I'm going to change my name to Anna") to "Too Busy to Write Any More!" she makes her way with flair. Utilizing the same graphically striking style that has characterized her earlier books, Portis places Anna(lina) and her classmates against a background of super-wide-ruled paper, but she adds color and collage elements to pump up the volume. She includes plenty of humorous touches, too: After the parents are all told to leave, three anxious-looking adults peer through the window at their children, who all look out at the reader, smiling. Friendships bloom, mishaps happen but throughout, "We are fine!" (Picture book. 4-7)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
