Deb Andries and Her Off-to-School Reading Team
September 2019

Start­ing kinder­garten is a spe­cial time, and it’s real­ly spe­cial when you get to read books with Gram­my to get you ready! For this addi­tion to our Rais­ing Star Read­ers fea­ture, we’re delight­ed to once again be show­cas­ing Deb Andries, a Nation­al Lit­er­a­cy Con­sul­tant who lives in Wis­con­sin, and two of her grand­chil­dren, who are both start­ing kinder­garten this fall. Emmer­syn, five-and-a-half, will attend in cen­tral Min­neso­ta. Grayson, also five-and-a-half, will attend in north­ern Wisconsin.

In prepa­ra­tion, they shared some very spe­cial books at Gram­my’s house. They talked about mak­ing new friends, offer­ing to sit by new friends at lunch, and invit­ing them to play at recess. They talked about how excit­ing it will be to get ready the night before. As the kid­dos stat­ed, “You HAVE to have your back­pack all ready every night!”

The team shared many back-to-school books which Deb gath­ered from her per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al library col­lec­tion. There are many great titles to share with read­ers as the school year begins, but one title is a par­tic­u­lar favorite of Grammy’s: The Day You Begin, writ­ten by Jacque­line Wood­son and illus­trat­ed by Rafael López. Deb describes the book this way:

“The Day You Begin is a beau­ti­ful sto­ry of a young boy who is start­ing in a new school. As the char­ac­ter tells his read­ers, ‘There will be times.…’ Grayson, Emmer­syn, and I talked about ‘times’ when they may be new to a sit­u­a­tion and how they might respond. I also use this book in my pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment train­ings as a Lit­er­a­cy Con­sul­tant, shar­ing the sto­ry as an inter­ac­tive read aloud, and with teach­ers who may be embrac­ing new teach­ing and learn­ing in the school year.”

Deb con­tin­ues: “I have fall­en in love with the mes­sage of this book! I share it with my grand­chil­dren, friends, col­leagues, and teach­ers because of the idea that new begin­nings offer so much hope for each of us. Or as Jacque­line Woodson’s sto­ry puts it, ‘This is the day you begin / to find the places inside / your laugh­ter and your lunch­es, / your books, your trav­el and your sto­ries, / where every new friend has some­thing / a lit­tle like you−and some­thing else / so fab­u­lous­ly not quite like you / at all.’”

Deb con­cludes with this wish for every­one: “May this school year be the begin­ning of find­ing places of laugh­ter, lunch­es, trav­el, sto­ries, and pro­found friendships.”

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Bookol­o­gy is always look­ing for new Read­ing Teams to help us cel­e­brate the joys of read­ing aloud togeth­er. Con­tact Lisa Bullard for fur­ther infor­ma­tion if you’re inter­est­ed in participating.