The Big Door: A Story About Starting School

Almost every book about starting school is cheerful from the first page. If your child isn't, that can land as one more thing they're getting wrong.Rafi's bag was ready before he was. His shoes were so new they squeaked. His mum said he was going to love it - and Rafi was not sure, so he put a small grey stone from the garden in his pocket and held on to it.The door was very big. Inside there were so many children, and all of them knew where to go. He did not say anything all morning.Then a girl called Nell opened his snack box, and did not make a big thing of it.This is a quiet story about the first day of school - one that lets a child be frightened of it first. The hard part lasts as long as it actually lasts. The comfort, when it comes, arrives in the smallest possible form: one other child, one beetle on the tarmac, one word said out loud. And at the end of the day, asked how it was, Rafi says what real five-year-olds say. "Fine."Inside you'll find: - A first day that is allowed to be hard - no forced excitement, no child grinning through a day that frightened them.- Twenty-four full-page illustrations in soft, warm gouache.- A friendship that starts without a word - two quiet children standing near each other at a fence.- A page for the grown-up at the back, with four gentle questions worth asking after school - and why "Fine" is a complete answer.From The Quiet Stories - picture books about the hard, ordinary things that happen to small children.27 pages. 8.5 x 8.5 inches. For ages 3-6.