11 Must Have Back to School Books
We all know the importance of the first couple of weeks of school…right? Raise your hand if you read Harry Wong’s First Day’s of School? It’s true…those first weeks of school with our students sets the stage for the entire year. Basically, if you don’t get off to a good start with your students…you’re likely to still be struggling in May!
Having a stack of great picture books ready to go is one way to set yourself up for success in the first weeks of school. Sharing a book with your class helps to start building a classroom community from the very first day.
There is just something about listening to your teacher read a book that helps to reduce anxiety and feel welcome in your new classroom. With so many books to choose from, you can choose a book with virtually any message you want to teach your students.
In addition to helping establish a welcoming classroom community, reading books aloud is the perfect way to teach literacy routines such as whole group instruction, active listening, partner turn and talk, and responding to text.
Truth be told…I love back to school books! There are so many books that I love to share with my class during the back to school season that I find myself trying to justify reading just one more back to school book while my colleagues are sipping on pumpkin spice lattes.
I started pulling books from my shelf that I plan to read with my students during the first weeks of school and thought I would share a few of my favorites in case you are looking for some ideas. You and your students are guaranteed to love these lesson-learning, conversation-starting, and just plain fun read alouds during the first few weeks of school.
#1 First Day Jitters by Julie Danneburg
Sarah Jane Hartwell doesn’t want to get out of bed to go to school for her first day. She is anxious and a bit worried about what her new class will be like and would just rather stay in bed. Mr. Hartwell is finally able to convince her to get out of bed and eat her breakfast. He drives her to school where she is met by the principal who walks her into class.
The book is written in such a way that the readers don’t know that Sarah is actually the teacher until the very end of the book. Your students will love the surprise ending!
This book provides the perfect opportunity for you, as the teacher, to share that you get nervous before the first day of school, too!
#2 The Sandwich Swap by Queen Rania of Jordan Al Abdullah
Lily and Salma are best friends from very different backgrounds. They do everything together like jumping rope and drawing pictures. The one thing that is not the same is what they each bring for lunch. Lily brings a peanut butter and jelly sandwich everyday…and Salma secretly thinks her sandwich looks and smells weird. Every day, Salma brings hummus stuffed into pita bread for lunch…and Lily thinks her lunch looks disgusting.
The two friend had kept their thoughts about each other’s sandwich secret until one day when Lily tells Salma what she thinks about her hummus on pita bread for lunch. This is the perfect opportunity for Salma to share her opinion about Lily’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It wasn’t long before their tempers flared and the food starts to fly!
This book is the perfect book to spark a discussion with your class about cultural and other difference in your class which encourages your students to get know each other.
My favorite quote from the book…
“It’s easy to jump to conclusions when we come across something new or foreign or strange. But if we take the time to get to know each other, stand in each other’s shoes and listen to a different point of view, we learn something wonderful—about someone else and about ourselves.”
Just a beautiful message!
#3 Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon by Patty Lovell
Molly Lou is smaller than the other kids in her class, she has big buck teeth and frizzy hair and sings like a bullfrog being squeezed by a boa constrictor, but none of this bothers her. That’s because her grandmother taught her that if she carried herself with confidence…the world would always look up to her, and if she smiled…the whole world would smile too.
It seemed to Molly that her grandmother was right until her family moves to a new house and she starts a new school. At her new school, Molly’s peculiarities made her a target for the school bully, Ronald Durkin. Molly remembers her grandmother’s advice, stands tall, and doesn’t let the bully get to her. Molly remains confident and it doesn’t take long for the other kids to start liking who she is on the inside. In the end, even the bully sees Molly as the special girl she really is!
This book is all about embracing your individuality and becoming the best version of ourselves by sharing our talents and special qualities with the world!
#4 Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson
Maya is the new girl at school, and Chloe and her friends aren’t very welcoming. Every time Maya asks if she can jump rope, play jacks, or pick up sticks with the girls, the answer is always no. So, Maya plays alone until one day she just stops coming to school.
That morning the teacher leads a lesson on the importance of kindness and how our actions can have a ripple effect in the world. As part of the lesson, each student is given a rock to drop in a bowl of water to watch the ripple effect it has while sharing a recent act of kindness they had done for someone. Chloe can’t stop thinking about Maya and can’t think of anything kind she has done and gives her stone back to the teacher without dropping it in the water.
Chloe has learned the sad lesson about the impact our words can have on others and realizes too late that she has missed her chance to show kindness to Maya. While this book does not have the typical “happy ending” it is guaranteed to prompt reflection and further discussion about how we should treat one another.
#5 Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
Chrysanthemum loves her name and thinks her parents picked “the absolutely perfect” name for her…that is until she starts school. Chrysanthemum tells the story of a young mouse who is teased at school for her long and unusual name. Chrysanthemum heard comments like “She’s named after a flower.” and “Her name doesn’t fit on a nametag.” After the teasing starts, Chrysanthemum starts to hate her own name. Understandably, Chrysanthemum is sad when she gets home. Her parents work to bolster her self-esteem and bring back the love for her name that she had had her whole life. Eventually, with the help of a caring and understanding teacher, Mrs. Twinkle, Chrysanthemum is able to be proud of her name again.
#6 Enemy Pie by Derek Munson
Summer was off to the perfect start until Jeremy Ross moved into the neighborhood. Jeremy laughs at the narrator when he strikes him out in a baseball game. He gets upset and is convinced that Jeremy Ross is his number one enemy. The narrator tells his dad he doesn't really like Jeremy, so his father decides to give him a suggestion in order for him to get along with his enemy.
The boy’s dad tells him that he knows how to get rid of enemies (make an enemy pie). His dad explains that for the enemy pie to work, he had to spend the whole day being nice to Jeremy. The boy is happy that his dad has a solution that will get rid of enemies and is ready to give it a try.
Like often happens, after spending the day together, something special happens! Jeremy realizes that he has more in common with Jeremy and that Jeremy was not as bad as he had initially thought. At the end of the day, Jeremy had become his friend. It turns out that Enemy Pie does get rid of your enemies, just not in the way one might expect!
#7 Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon
Camilla Cream loves lima beans until she gets teased for liking them. Camilla is embarrassed and tells her family that she won’t be eating lima beans anymore. Not long after, Camilla breaks out in stripes. She is covered from head to toe in colorful stripes. Her mom has the doctor check her out, but they can still not figure out what is causing the stripe. The doctors give her some medicine, but the stripes only get worse and even turn into other patterns such as clouds and a checkerboard.
After several days with the unexplainable stripes, Camilla meets a lady who gives her lima beans. Camila decides to eat them. After Camilla eats the lima beans, she returns to her normal self without the stripes. She continues to eat lima beans and doesn’t let it bother her that everyone else thinks they are gross.
#8 Recess Queen by Alexis O’Neill
Mean Jean terrorizes all the other kids on the playground at recess. Everyone knows Mean Jean and everyone is scared of her. But things on the playground started to change when a new kid, Katie Sue, arrives. When the bell for recess rang, Katie Sue ran out onto the playground and did as she wished. She didn’t know about Mean Jean and all of her “rules”.
Katie Sue not following the rules has made Mean Jean so upset that she is ready to fight. Mean Jean marches up to Katie Sue, but instead of backing down and complying with Mean Jean’s rules, Katie Sue asks her to jump rope with her. That was the first time anyone had asked Mean Jean to play with them. So, instead of fighting, Mean Jean plays with Katie Sue, and their friendship blossoms from there.
From that day on, recess is a much happier place because Mean Jean is no longer mean and everyone is able to play together happily.
#9 Because You Are My Teacher by Sherry North
This is a delightful book that blends imagination with geography. A creative teacher shares with her class all the places they would visit “If they had a_____” (schooner, camel, helicopter, a river raft, hang gliders, hot air balloons, submarine, and other modes of transportation).
Through the power of imagination, the teacher takes the kids to visit places such as “the Atlantic where the great blue whales roam free”, “desert lands to see the ancient pyramids rising from the sands”, “tour the Amazon and listen as the howler monkeys growl their spooky song”, and “get a birds-eye view of the Australian outback and the large red kangaroo”. The teacher tells the class they would also visit volcanoes, Antarctic fields, China’s Great Wall, the Grand Canyon.
The beauty of this story is that the teacher is actually promising them that they could actually visit these places in their minds through the books they read and the learning they experience during the year.
#10 The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig
The Invisible Boy is a story about Brian who feels isolated and lonely and seems to go unnoticed by everyone in his class. Teamwork and interacting with the other kids does not come easy for Brian. He is a loner who loves to draw, has a great imagination, and create stories. Brian feels ignored at lunchtime by his classmates and ignored when the kids choose teams to play kickball at recess. Even Brian’s teacher doesn’t seem to notice him because she is paying attention to the louder kids. So Brian just hangs out waiting quietly and hopes that someone will notice him.
When a new student, Justin, comes, Brian writes him a note that he quietly and shyly leaves in the new boy’s locker. The note starts a friendship that will lead to Brian becoming more visible. The illustrations of the text mirror the transformation in Brian. At the beginning of the book, Brian is gray and colorless. As the story progresses, his illustrations start to take on more and more color.
#11 Ruby the Copycat by Peggy Rathmann
Ruby is the new kid in class. On her first day, she is sat behind Angela who Ruby immediately likes because of the red bow in her hair. Throughout the book, Ruby continuously copies everything Angela does, from the clothes she wears to the poem she chooses to recite in class. Everyone is starting to notice that Ruby is always trying to dress and act like Angela. At first, Angela takes Ruby copying her as a compliment, but it doesn’t take her long to realize that she doesn’t like it. Angela writes Ruby a note and lets her know that she does not like being copied all the time.
Miss Hart, Ruby’s teacher tries to encourage her to be her own person rather than trying to be just like Angela. Miss Hart encourages her to just be Ruby. Ruby takes Miss Hart’s message the wrong way and starts copying everything the teacher does instead. Miss Hart talks to Ruby again and works to uncover what Ruby likes to do. This time Ruby gets the message and shows everyone her own special talent. Ruby reveals that she is the best hopper in the class and the whole class begins to hop just like Ruby.
Has all the craziness of back to school left you short on time? Grab the complete interactive read aloud lesson for each of these books and mark something off your to-do list!
