First Day At Bug School by Sam Lloyd (Children's, Picture book, 10E/10E, short 'n' sweet review)

August 2016, Bloomsbury Children's, 32 pages, Paperback, Review copy

Summary from Bloomsbury

At the bottom of the garden
where no one really sees,
a secret school is hidden
amongst the grass and weeds.
Welcome to Bug School! Don't be nervous on your first day – it's lots of fun. Learn creeping with the spiders, singing with the crickets, count spots with the ladybirds and hop, skip and jump in P.E. with the fleas! - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/first-day-at-bug-school-9781408868805/#sthash.VVRHSpCA.dpuf

At the bottom of the garden
where no one really sees,
a secret school is hidden
amongst the grass and weeds.

Welcome to Bug School! Don't be nervous on your first day – it's lots of fun. Learn creeping with the spiders, singing with the crickets, count spots with the ladybirds and hop, skip and jump in P.E. with the fleas!

Nayu's thoughts 

There are hardly any worms in this first day at school tale! I expected some, but I didn't see any! There were caterpillars, which I can cope with, flies, bugs and more. They each have their own personality which made me smile as they went through typical school activities. I fell in love with the story on the first double page where there is a layout of the school with the roof taken off, showing everyone in their class. When I was a child I frequently built labyrinths using playing cards leaning against each other, then making up stories about who lived there (it was almost always an empty set of rooms). Seeing the school with the roof off reminded me of that! 

I feel every aspect of school is covered including allergy notices, the mystery of why boys' toilets often smell, students getting marks for good and bad behaviour, the chaos of lunch time (love how only the flies can eat the poop pie, maths being done by the ladybirds, and play time where nearly everyone has fun on the playground. There is so much on each page that every time this book is read readers will spot something new. My personal favourite is the cute girl spider on the left of the cover with a single red bow-isn't she adorable? A great read for those who love bugs as well as those who don't, with humour that older readers will pick up on as well as younger ones.