Our Teacher's Having a Baby

Rating:
Summary: Blah, blah, bland
Review: This book was, well, okay in a kinda bland way. I was a bit disappointed with it. Nevertheless, I bought it for a Kindergarten teacher who was about to leave her kindergarten class on maternity leave in the latter part of the spring. Although it was a "blah" read, it helped to open up discussions about the fears of the kindergarten students. Many of them related well with the situation, but the characters themselves including the teacher in the book were not as developed as I had hoped.

Rating:
Summary: Reviewing Our Teachers Having A Baby
Review: This picture book is about a teacher, Mrs. Neal, who sits her students down one day for a discussion. Mrs. Neal explains to her students she will be absent soon because she is about to have a baby. Then Polly, the main character, asks Mrs. Neal when her stomach got so big. The class never really noticed her stomach's size.
The students begin to worry that Mrs. Neal will never come back. But most of all, the students can't understand how a teacher can become a mother or how a mother could be a teacher.
Finally one day the students arrive and see they have substitute teacher and automatically know why. Mrs. Neal has a girl and names her Isabel, which the kids all like. Mrs. Neal and Isabel visit the class and the students are all amazed with the little baby, but they are still worried Mrs. Neal won't come back. Mrs. Neal reassures them and that makes the students all happy again.
The pictures help to clearly visualize the text and help the reader get a sense of feeling from the story being told. This would be an excellent book for a Caldecott award. The illustrations are so creative and well sought out.