The Sunday Blues by Neil Layton

This book does a great job of capturing how everyone may feel on Sunday's because they know that they have a full week ahead of them. This would be a great book for a teacher to read aloud on Monday morning, to get the kids excited about the week because school really isn't a dreadful place. I really like that the front cover invites all different readers to enjoy this book by saying who the book is for. I like that the pictures are hand-drawn and look like a child may have drawn them. The author sets the mood by having a picture of Steve's house with a dark rain cloud above it and the windows showing everything outside to be blue. It is clever that the things Steve does all look like they have been drawn on paper. Once again the rain cloud is brought up midway through the story when the family is driving home and there is a black cloud above their car. I thought that it was funny that when Steve is dreaming about pirates he sees a pirate school and pirate teacher so he immediately wakes up. Throughout the entire book, Steve is completely dreading school and is so certain that no matter what he will have a terrible time there. Then, when he arrives and the children are nice to him and invite him to do things, he realizes that school will not be as bad as he thought. This could be a good way to teach, especially young kids, that if they have a bad attitude about school, they won't have any fun. This book would be good for kindergartners that are still terrified to leave their parents for the whole day.