First Grade Dropout

“I can’t stop thinking about it. How everyone laughed and slapped their desks and stomped their feet. And pointed. At me.” The narrator’s social infraction? “I. Called. My. Teacher. MOMMY!!!” It’s a typical-enough blunder among kids new to school (“Don’t worry. It happens every year,” tosses off the boy’s teacher), but what kid in any new situation feels typical? Having suffered what he perceives as landmark mortification, the narrator concludes that dropping out of school is his only option. At soccer practice, where he assumes a calculatedly laid-back persona (“I put my hand on my hip, like someone who doesn’t care if other people laugh”), he tests the waters, telling his best friend, Tyler, that he’s quitting school. Tyler has no idea why -- so minor was the narrator’s transgression in everyone else’s eyes. An even more teachable moment comes later, when Tyler laughs at his own derision-worthy slipup. Tyler’s grace is a revelation for the narrator, who leaves the story finally capable of the same. The book is a riot as well as an analgesic: Vernick’s tightly wound, age-appropriately self-absorbed narrator is hugely relatable, but young readers will also get that he’s overdoing it. Cordell’s frugally tinted pen-and-ink and watercolor drawings have a Jules Feiffer–like looseness that captures the narrator’s downward thought-spiral, epitomized by a spread of an imagined all-classmate marching band chanting “Ha! Ha!” and wearing hats that read “Mommy.” nell beram

Readers will sympathize with this first grader as he describes being laughed at by a "big marching band" of classmates (including his best friend!) after he accidentally calls his teacher "Mommy." From the opening lines, the narrator's voice stands out ("I've been lots of things. Hungry. Four years old. Crazy-bored. Soaking wet.") and makes for an amusing read. For example, after he decides he has no choice but to drop out of school, he says, "It'll be fine. I'll stay at home for a bunch of years, no big deal, work on my jump shot, and maybe when I'm a teenager, I'll get a job." The story concludes in an entertaining and satisfying way: at soccer (the first grader is ready to drop out of that, too), his best friend, Tyler, doesn't remember-or care about-the narrator's mistake earlier in the day. And then Tyler makes his own verbal faux pas, providing some gentle and valuable perspective. Matthew Cordell's lively sketch-like illustrations effectively capture the characters' emotions and add to the humor.

Having suffered landmark mortification ("I. Called. My. Teacher. MOMMY!!!"), the narrator concludes his only option is dropping out of school. Later, friend Tyler's grace at his own derision-worthy slip-up is a revelation for the age-appropriately self-absorbed narrator. Young readers will relate and also get that he's overdoing it. Loose pen-and-ink and watercolor drawings capture the narrator's downward thought-spiral.