"A gloriously empathetic and genuinely funny guide to everything you need to know about school."
July 2025 Book of the Month
As our lively pig-tailed guide tells us – it is called The Tour when you have to show a new kid around your school, and she is going to show us what to do in case we ever get that VERY IMPORTANT job! (There is a brilliant use of font size, colour and capitalisation to capture tone, volume and emphasis – all of which make it fabulous to read aloud).
Naturally the tour has to start with the toilets ‘Everybody in the world needs to know where they are’ How true! But our guide urges us to make things ‘more fun’ with little facts like the soap smells of strawberries and that there is an ‘amazing-zing-zing’ echo when you sing!
Nadia Shireen’s highly expressive illustrations of this diverse school population are fully of humorous detail and really extend the skilfully naturalistic narration. The next most important task is to decide on an Emergency Meet Up place before showing off the very best places like the playground and the library and telling the very best stories about them because, in all the excitement, you might fail to notice that you have lost someone…The reader will have noticed how the new person was looking more and more scared and overwhelmed. But our guide remembers ‘ how it feels not to know anyone’ and remembers her own Emergency a year ago and she shares her experience to reassure the new person when she locates him in the Emergency Meet Up Place and she answers any questions including the all important ‘What happens next? ‘We can just become friends’ is the perfect answer for any newcomer and the only thing our guide wanted one year ago!
This will bring delighted recognition from children who will compare their own schools and experiences. I can imagine lots of role play and children wanting to act the part of the guide. A wonderful primer to discuss the importance of kindness and empathy and will be marvellously reassuring to any preschoolers or to any potential new kid. An absolute must have!
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