Kindergarten Diary

A charming first day of school read aloud for Kindergartners, this journal-entry-style picture book can calm the fears and clear up misconceptions of Kindergarten life. Portis highlights common concerns children have on their first day of school such as, what do I wear, what will my teacher be

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like, who will be in my class, and will the big kids be nice to me? Colorful cartoon-like drawings depict young children (mainly white with a token mixed race child) as they experience daily activities during the first month of school. All kindergartners will find a pressing concern to relate to in this book which will be assuaged as they’ll laugh out loud at some of the silly pictures that are seemingly straight out of a young student’s imagination.

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I enjoyed reading Kindergarten Diary because of the writing style and point of view. Throughout the book, the diary being written is through the point of view of a kindergartener. For example, when she explains what she is going to wear to her first day: “my rainbow bathing suit, my ballet skirt,

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my plaid shirt, my cowboy boots, and definitely no socks.” The writing really puts the reader in the mindset of a kindergartner and how they would respond to certain situations. For example when the teacher says that they have been in kindergarten for almost a month, the kindergarten says, “That is a very very very long time.” She also talks about how when she is in first grade she will not be mean or scared. The central message of this book is that it shows the transformation of a kindergarten student in her first month of kindergarten. She goes from being scared in the beginning of her diary to “un-scared” and too busy to write at the end of the diary. This would be a good book to read to kindergartners at the beginning of the year, as well as to show them how to write an on-going journal.

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