Hmmm… A book that could be used to generate interest in going to school in the reluctant, but things get in the way of my recommendation. Pom the human is so eager to get to school s/he actually joins in on the first day of all the animals' school years – witnessing the mice gather and burn off energy before the first class, looking in on reading time here, noting outdoors activities with the squirrels, maths for the carrot-fixated rabbits, and so on. Visually, these are conveyed well, with a different kind of school layout for every location, and each to their own double-page spread, but what I didn't like was the text. The bulk of the writing is captions that vocalise all the chatter of the critters, and it all got a little too much, listening in on over a dozen interior monologues each page, presented as speech bubbles but without the bubbles. Also it's damned annoying the book that should be used to show the fun merit of schools off, and nothing else, is forced to socially engineer the "they" pronoun down our throats – while at the same time the uber-'woke' book has the audacity to make a virtue of exclusionary things like gifting things to the teacher on day one. I would hope someone in need of a pro-school lesson in book forms succeeds in their quest, for I would not wish them to only have this as an option.

Review to come April 28th to blog/goodreads.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

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I just had to read this book. The cover looked adorable and I was very curious about what kind of schools the animals had.

Meet Pom, a small girl who isn't going to school yet (next year it all starts for her). She is curious about school though and so she packs up a rucksack and goes to follow her animal-friends who are going to school. She has a fun day finding out what all of her friends are doing and I had a fun time following her along. I think my favourite school would be the mice, followed by the foxes. I also liked that she didn't just watch but also participated in whatever the lessons were at the moment. For instance at the frogs she participated in the music lesson.

I loved how many details there were in the art. And how colourful it is. You keep discovering new things. Music classes, a bunny running with speed to the toilet, a tentacle in the pond, and much more, I even spied Goldilocks and other fairytale girls! I definitely took much longer with this book than I do with most picture books. Oh, and I also got to mention that, while it was a bit hard to read as my ADE doesn't like zooming in, I do like the conversations we see between various animals on a page. About anything. From playing to water in someone's eye.

The ending was sweet, I loved seeing her enthusiasm for all she experienced and that she is now looking forward to going to school even more!

All in all, a very fun, sweet, and heartwarming book! I would recommend it.