Starting to school can be a scary experience, even when you don’t have a name like Click Clack Waddle Dot Dewey Dew and even when you don’t have to travel all the way to Earth from Planet Eight Hundred Seventy-Two Point Nine. Dewey Dew does not want to attend Mrs. Brightsun’s School for Little Learners on Earth.
His mother insists he has to go and learn, but things get worse with classmates who have five fingers instead of three and stuff growing on top of their heads. You know you look different from them. The schoolroom has strange things called cubbies, and you must wear clothes that don’t fit right. All of that and Mrs. Brightsun keeps dinging on this space-shaped thing on her desk.
Just when you think things could not get worse, the children all line up in pairs to go outside so you find a corner to hide – that is until J. J. offers to be a friend. Funny thing is that your smile matches his, only much brighter. In the end, it’s all going to be “ootay.”
Time for (Earth) School, Dewey Dew by Leslie Staub was such a fun read for the grandmother (me) to share with two grandsons (Benjamin and Owen) who quickly figured out Dewey Dew’s alien words. I highly recommend it for preschoolers through first grade. I think it will be a repeated request that the adult will not mind reading over and over.