School and first-day stories

Most classic tales are set in forests, kitchens and kingdoms. This shelf adds modern, practical stories to the few classics that genuinely put school into the action.

Maya's Brave First Morning, for first-day nerves

Maya's Brave First Morning breaks a frightening whole day into one hook, one letter and one skipping rope. It is the most direct first-day choice for ages three to seven.

The Quiet Corner Cat, when the room is too much

The Quiet Corner Cat gives a noise-sensitive child a respectful pause strategy and shows that stepping out briefly can be how someone rejoins.

Finn and the Unkind Game, for repeated exclusion

Finn and the Unkind Game is the clearest bullying story here. It names adult help as the safe next step instead of asking a child to solve exclusion alone.

A Little Princess, for a child who is finding school hard

A Little Princess is the longest at eleven minutes, and it suits ages six to ten. Sara Crewe arrives at a London boarding school with everything and loses it in an afternoon. What the story is actually about is how she behaves once the other girls stop being kind, which makes it the right story for a child who is being left out rather than one who is simply nervous.

Goody Two Shoes, for a child who likes being the capable one

Goody Two Shoes is gentler and shorter, and it goes the other way: Margery has nothing at the start and teaches herself to read, then teaches everybody else. It is a good story for the week before a first day, because the child in it is the one who ends up helping.

Mary Had a Little Lamb, for a very first introduction

Mary Had a Little Lamb is a one-minute rhyme for ages one to three. School is friendly, funny and quickly over; the familiar rhythm makes it the least demanding choice for a toddler who is only beginning to hear what school is.

If none of those is right, the worry underneath is usually one of three things, and other parts of the library may handle each of them better than a school setting would.

• Nervous about a new place. The belonging stories are about arriving somewhere and not fitting yet. The Ugly Duckling is the one every child eventually needs.
• Trouble with other children. The friendship stories deal with falling out and making up. The Lion and the Mouse is two minutes and makes the point that the smallest child in the room is not the least useful one.
• Frightened of getting it wrong. The bravery stories are about being scared and doing the thing anyway, which is the whole of a first morning.

For choosing by the time you have rather than the subject, the five-minute stories are the ones that fit a school night that has already run late.

A story is a safer way into a worry than a direct question, because the child can talk about the character instead of themselves. The practical version of this is in the guide on reading aloud and school readiness, and the questions worth asking afterwards are in questions to ask during a bedtime story.

Keep the story itself ordinary. The night before a first day is not the night for a new, exciting, thirty-minute tale; it is the night for something familiar, finished early, with the light off at the usual time. Stories for early readers has the fuller list for this age.