100 School Days by Deborah Frenkel and Laura Stitzel
Published by Affirm Press
Guest Author Post by Deborah Frenkel about 100 School Days
Thank you for speaking to Joy in Books at PaperbarkWords blog about your picture book 100 School Days, Deborah. You are having a heyday with your excellent picture books, The Truck Cat amongst them.
Deborah explains in her piece that 100 School Days is not only about the first day of school but the first 100 days of school, so it has ongoing relevance throughout much of the year. It’s also a counting up to 100 book and is written in rhyme.
About 100 School Days …
Have you heard the joke about the child who was very excited about his first day of school? When his parents picked him up that afternoon, they were surprised to find him in floods of tears. ‘What’s the matter?’ they asked. ‘Well, I’ve been to school,’ replied the child, ‘but now the teacher said I have to come back tomorrow!’
Ouch! I feel for that child. Because while there’s always a lot of hype around the very first day – cue newspaper articles, school gate emotions and lots of proud social media posts – the thrill and challenge of the first year of school lasts a lot longer. And this is where our picture book 100 School Days comes in.
Here’s the blurb:
When you start school, there are a lot of firsts. Your first friend! Your first excursion! Your first sports day! As the days go by, all those firsts add up… and soon you’ve reached 100 days of school. And once you’ve reached this milestone, you know you can reach for absolutely anything.
So 100 School Days is a sort of starting school book, but the actual first day is done and dusted by the time we get to the second page turn. Instead, the book moves on to explore some of the first experiences that a new student will encounter through the first months of school. Like the first PE class. First excursion. First soggy-wet-day-timetable indoor lunchtime. And then, of course, the thrilling moment on the 100th day, when students bring their grown-ups to school and proudly show them around:
One by one, we take the stage.
I do a silly bow.
No-one cries. No-one’s shy.
We’re really schoolkids now.
Full disclosure though: I wrote the text for 100 School Days without really realising I was writing a starting school book at all. I scribbled it down in a rush, dashing home from my own daughter’s 100-Days-of-School celebration in August 2022, thinking ‘there really ought to be a picture book about this event…’
Because over the last few years, many primary schools have started celebrating the 100th day of prep, kindergarten or reception – whatever it’s called in your state. I knew this event would make a wonderful premise for a picture book, with a built-in counting structure from Day 1 to Day 100, via a series of first experiences. So that day, I went through my camera roll, my phone calendar and my own patchy recall of the various first experiences my daughter had experienced that year, and pieced together the text.
Surprisingly, it came it in rhyme – something that I’d never really tried before. Back then, I wasn’t sure why I was compelled to write in this style, but now it makes sense to me: the rhythmic beat of the syllables provided a clock-tick that emphasises the passage of time through the story. And now I know that while 100 School Days is ostensibly about the 100th day celebration, really it’s about the extraordinary growth that children experience at school – the spreading of their wings, from the first day, and beyond.
I was so happy when Affirm let me know that Laura Stitzel had agreed to illustrate the book. Her illustrations are so warm and relatable, and packed full of the detail that allow pre- or early-readers to pore over the pages and discover something new every time. My favourite is the spread showing the protagonist, Lee, figuring out how to read the word ‘bird.’ The way Laura shows the bird materialising in front of her – it gives me the shivers every time I see it! That’s the magic of learning to read, and the power of our extraordinary teachers – one of the many lessons in store in this dramatic, transformative first year.
For those kids (and parents!) starting school this week, remember – unlike the child in the joke – that the first day of school isn’t the end! And neither, in fact, is the 100th day of school. It’s truly just the beginning:
And soon we’ll do stupendous things
an infinity of ways
For you can reach for anything…
When you’ve reached 100 days.
Good luck, and have fun!
Another new book about starting school is The Starting School List
paperbarkwords.blog 