Sammy Spider's First Day of School

Sammy Spider

by Sylvia A. Rouss, Katherine Janus Kahn (Illustrator)

Sammy Spider sneaks onto Josh's lunch box and accompanies him to school, where he learns about the important Jewish value of being kind to animals.

Genres: Picture Books, Fiction

30 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was actually kinda disappointing. I took it out to read for the first day of school, hoping it'd be about adjusting to school, coping with back to school feelings, and addressing other typical first day issues. . . but it was just about treating animals respectfully. Which I'm all for reading to kids about, but I just felt like it was very deceptive. Now when should I read it to my students? On the first day of school we wanted to talk about first day feelings. . . but when we want to talk about kindness to animals, it won't be the first day of school anymore. You see the issue, right? We went with How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?, which is goofy and fun and actually does address back to school feelings and concerns. . . much better than sticking a random lesson into a first day of school book.
(Sorry about that rant. I'm picky about my children's literature. I like to read good books myself, and I like to read good books to my students, too! But it was still cute, and it teaches a good lesson - just not one I'd necessarily want to specifically focus on the first day of school. The kids thought it was funny that the teacher was also Morah Sarah.)

[K Morlando · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story for young children.

[Nick Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sammy is a Jewish spider. Spiders don't go to school! Everybody knows, spiders spin webs (not depicted in the work).
But one day, Sammy falls into Josh's lunchbox, and when Josh goes to school, Sammy goes too!
At school, Josh is told the story of Noah's Ark and the boys and girls speculate about how Noah took care of every species (with cute back-and-forth). But Sammy feels left out because the children don't talk about spiders, did Noah like spiders? Josh learns that kindness to animals is an important Jewish value.

Collage-style art with psychedelic monsters (the spiders). Each page has a scene and a couple of sentences (a paragraph) of text. There are views from different perspectives e.g. looking up from the floor at the level of a spider. Figures of people are jolly freaks with button eyes and colourful skullcaps. Too much text for the two-year-old I tried it with to sit still, but older infants who like art should be fine.

[Taylor Kundel-Gower · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the message in this book and I also like that there is a picture book series for Jewish children that deals with more than just the Americanized version of Chanukah.