My Teacher's Not Here!

As soon as she arrives at school, Kitty knows there's trouble. ?Smiling Miss Seabrooke should be here to meet me. But my teacher is missing and NOT here to greet me.? With no Miss Seabrooke, everyone should be sent home, right? But no! Kitty and her classmates line up as usual and walk into the school building. Kitty's worries build as she wonders how she will get through the day without her teacher. What will she do when her Thermos gets stuck or her jacket won't zip? Miss Seabrooke is the only one who can fix these things. Or is she?

Author Lana Button perfectly captures the fears and uncertainties of a kindergartner dealing with her first substitute teacher. She also models a way to cope, as Kitty steps up to help the substitute --- a ?ginormously tall? giraffe named Mr. Omar --- and discovers that sometimes change can be good. Button's playful and lively cadenced rhyming text, together with Christine Battuz's friendly illustrations of a full cast of animal characters at school, make this a terrific picture book for story time. It provides an excellent lead-in to prepare a class for their first substitute, or for a discussion about how it feels when life doesn't go as expected. A celebration of self-discovery and personal development, this book also makes a wonderful choice for character education lessons on kindness, empathy and perseverance. Educators will appreciate the heartfelt depiction of a young child's warm feelings for her teachers.

Lana Button works in early childhood education. Her writing has been published in Lady Bug magazine and Today's Parent. Willow's Whispers is Lana's first book for Kids Can Press.

Christine Battuz has illustrated over sixty books for children, including Wade's Wiggly Antlers, and has taught art to children of all ages. She lives in Bromont, Quebec.