SEYMOUR SLUG STARTS SCHOOL

Thanks to an overly enthusiastic “Fairy Slugmother,” young Seymour gets over his first day jitters—though not quite in the way he expects. Rather than help him with writing his name, or planting a lima bean in a cup, Seymour’s tutu-clad little companion, invisible to all but him, exuberantly scrawls drawings all over the paper, and scatters dirt with abandon. But Seymour’s teacher, Ms. Mildew, takes it all in stride, calmly offering him chances to clean up and try again—and so giving him the confidence, after a further mishap on the playground, to decline the fairy’s insistent offers of assistance. Despite an occasional problem with the book’s gutter, Armstrong-Ellis’s buoyant, tongue-in-cheek illustrations play off perfectly against Seymour’s anxieties, emphasizing appropriately glutinous-looking browns and greens in portraying a lumpish, stalk-eyed cast in human dress and settings. A sluggy, but not at all sluggish, variation on the familiar “first day” theme. (Picture book. 6-8)