ALLY-SAURUS & THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

A little girl with a dino-sized imagination joins, and learns to get along with, other kids with their own particular styles on the first day of school.

Ally’s a young girl who knows what she likes: dinosaurs. In fact, her scribbly black-and-white figure is surrounded by crayoned pink spines running down her head and back to her tail, and her feet have pink claws. But will she meet any other dinos at school? “I think you’re going to make a lot of new friends,” her mother reassures her. It takes a while for the other kids’ imaginations to overcome their first-day nervousness, but slowly, their outlines also take on hues and costumes: an astronaut, three princesses, a dragon, a lion, and bespectacled Walter, who loves his new briefcase-shaped lunchbox. Recess is spent acting out these fantasies, and an end-of-the-day trip to the library just may prompt some new adventures for tomorrow. Torrey nicely tackles lots of first-day issues in this imaginative offering—making friends, getting along, keeping an open mind, the everyday routines of kindergarten—and he does so with aplomb. Pastel backgrounds make the multiethnic figures stand out, especially their brightly colored imagined costumes.

Ally is an empathetic guide for young children facing their own first days, no matter what or who they imagine themselves to be.