The Pout-Pout Fish Goes to School - NO

The Pout-Pout Fish Goes to School by Deborah Diesen, illustrated by Dan Hanna.  BOARD BOOK Farrar Straus Grioux, 2014.  $8.  9780374308520  

BUYING ADVISORY: PRE-K - NO  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: LOW  

Mr. Fish is headed off to his first day of school and is excited, but when he gets there he is lost.  As Mr. Fish tries to find the correct classroom, he gets more and more discouraged.  Just as he is about to quit school, his teacher finds him and shows him that he is going to fit right in.  

Pout-Pout Fish books are adorable, but this one is not.  I had so much anxiety for Mr. Fish as he was lost at school on his first day, trying classroom after classroom, but he was always in the wrong place.  If you want to give your child anxiety about all the ways the first day of school can go wrong, read this to them.  Also, this doesn’t work as a board book because it has a lot of text and Mr. Fish’s school setting seems more like a middle school not a preschool.  

C. Peterson