On My Way To School by Sarah Maizes (Children’s Book Review)

School.

We’ve been back at it for a month now, and the bloom is off the rose. Every weekday morning there are groans and whining instead of bounces and enthusiasm like there were during the first few days of school.

While Sarah Maizes’ latest book in the On My Way To… series came out before school started, I am finding that it is useful now that school is a daily reality that has sunk in, however unwelcome.

It seems funny to review a children’s book, but our kids have preferences for certain things just like we do, right? The best way I have figured out how to discover my own boys’ tastes is just to to put piles of books under their noses and see which ones they pick up again and again. It was easy when they were babies and I read them Goodnight Moon every single day and night. They had no choice. But once they got older and actually started learning how to read, well, let’s just say they expressed their opinions with no reasonable doubt.

That’s why I hoped and prayed that they would love the series by Sarah Maizes. She is my friend and colleague, and she has persevered against all odds (i.e. the intimidating world of book publishing) to publish not one but now three children’s books inspired by her own daughter Livi who stalls and hems and haws when forced to go to things like bed, a bath, and now school.

On My Way To School is the fantastical journey of a little girl who doesn’t want to go to school. “School is for people who need to learn stuff. I have gone to school and hundred times and I already know lots of stuff,” declares Livi. Boy, have I heard that one before.

Turning the mundane, routine task of getting out of bed and getting dressed for school into an adventure filled with snails, pirates, kangaroos, a red carpet, and more, Maizes channels Livi into a story that can help kids wrap their little minds around going to school. Michael Paraskevas’ colorful and imaginative illustrations will hopefully inspire them to create their own adventures out of otherwise ordinary days.

This book is perfect for my 7-year-old who is just getting a handle on reading, and loves the pictures and the story. He creates fantasy worlds for himself all the time, and can, no doubt, relate.

I think I’ll put it under his pillow and hope he awakes with a sense of adventure for school that he receives by osmosis during the night.

On My Way To School
by Sarah Maizes
$14.29 on Amazon