TEACHERS AND WHAT THEY DO

Other books have tackled the fact that teachers don’t live in their classrooms, but what dothey actually do?

Well, this particular blonde, pink-skinned teacher “wears regular clothes,” teaches kids to use their hands and their heads, writes on the chalkboard, greets students at the school gates, reads to her class, shows her students how to do arts and crafts (an obsession, it seems), asks questions, sorts out arguments, comforts children, “gives the really naughty kids time outs,” leads field trips, and sometimes works after school grading papers and planning lessons. And at the end of the year? Well, “teachers deserve something nice.” A page turn reveals instructions for a (surprise!) paper crown craft. Unlike Slegers’ Chefs (2014), this book unfortunately divides itself between alleviating children’s fears by highlighting what school is like and showcasing the teacher’s job, doing really well at neither. Although the vocabulary is not geared to new readers, Slegers’ sentences are simplistic and choppy, perhaps due to the text’s translation from Dutch. This would also explain some odd choices: The chalkboard is wiped with a duster; the teacher also instructs the students in gymnastics and swimming; and it seems to be a mixed-age classroom, though the focus is clearly on the younger students’ school day.

Slegers’ adorable, round-headed, rosy-cheeked characters posed against solid-colored backgrounds aren’t enough to rescue this one.