The First Week of School
by Drew Beckmeyer; illus. by the author
Primary    Atheneum    48 pp.
6/24    9781665940429    $18.99
e-book ed.  9781665940436    $10.99

The cover of this back-to-school picture book appears to show an ordinary class photo, with some kids smiling, others posing, still others jostling, a frazzled teacher…and one space alien. The front endpapers and title-page spread whoosh readers far into outer space, then (on the copyright and dedication pages) back toward our upper atmosphere, then down to Earth to hover above an elementary school. “This is the first day of the first week of school,” begins the text, as a line of cars at drop-off snakes around a pleasant-looking building. Once inside, and all day Monday, we get to know a class of students by their interests and peculiarities: the Inventor, the Artist, the Sport Kings, plus the Teacher and Pat, the class-pet bearded dragon. Then on Tuesday a spaceship appears, and a new classmate—Nobody—joins the group. The story takes us through the days of the week, along with key activities (show-and-tell, recess), with readers following the characters’ simultaneous actions, which continue and build with every page-turn. The cheerfully busy crayon illustrations offer many satisfying details to notice and track. There’s lots of humor—Pat, at first alarmed, grows attached to the alien—and moments of poignancy: the Artist suffers a creative crisis that’s resolved by Nobody; a social studies lesson by the Teacher about her family’s immigrant experience makes the alien miss “his own gelatinous family” and then beam back up. It’s a quirky story with way-out details that are ultimately grounded in home.

From the July/August 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.