This is an adorable story of a fretting fish on his first day of school. He arrives and ends up in the wrong classroom and begins to doubt his ability. The repetitive pattern of the book would be great to work on the skill of re-telling. It is also just a feel-good story and reminder that we can do it! ( )

This review orignially published by The Children's Book and Media Review

Mr. Fish feels out of place on his first day of school. All the other fish know where to go to find their lockers and classes, and everyone else seems better than he is at doing things. He starts counting his troubles, and as things seem to get harder for him, he keeps repeating his troubles to himself. He decides to quit, but his teacher, Miss Hewitt, comes to tell him that she will teach him everything he needs to know and that his perceptions about his problems are the opposite of reality. Mr. Fish learns that everyone can do if they work hard enough.

The plot of this book is very simple, but children who are starting new things that they are worried about will identify with Mr. Fish in his trouble to belong. Some parents might not like the repeated message of the troubles, even though the opposite of them are shown to be true at the end of the book. The illustrations are cute and provide some opportunity for kids to reinforce their knowledge of numbers and shapes. This book is a good story to reassure readers that they can do hard things and belong, even if they don’t feel like they can at the beginning. ( )

This little fish has his first day at his new school. He feels very shy and thinks he is failing at everything. He even gives up and runs away. But before he can get far, a kind teacher tells him that he is a smart fish and just needs a little help. With the teachers help and some new friends he ends up loving school and even succeeding.

On Pout-Pout Fish's first day of school, he gets turned around and ends up in several classrooms before he finds the right one. He tries to write, draw shapes, and do math, getting more and more troubled, until his teacher finds him: "I am here to help you learn and I know that you can do it!"

Rhyming text avoids the temptation of "school of fish" jokes, other than the obvious one in the title. ( )

Mr. Fish returns in this third picture-book devoted to his adventures, following upon The Pout-Pout Fish and The Pout-Pout Fish and the Big Big Dark, this time confronting the daunting experience of beginning school for the first time. Everywhere he goes, he finds that he doesn't have the requisite knowledge to succeed, something which only strengthens his naturally gloomy outlook, leading to his conclusion that he doesn't belong in school. Fortunately, his teacher Miss Hewitt gets to him just in time, and leads him to the class for brand-new fish, where he finds he fits right in...

Like its predecessors, The Pout-Pout Fish Goes to School pairs a rhyming text from author Deborah Diesen with colorful artwork from illustrator Dan Hanna. Unlike its predecessors, the narrative here is somewhat awkward, with a rhyme scheme that often felt a little forced. "The class was doing writing, / And most everybody knew it. / So he tried to print his name... / But he just couldn't do it." Does one "do" writing? Can one say that "everybody knew it," when clearly what is meant is that everyone else knew how to do it (i.e.: write)? One can if the object is to force a rhyme, with little regard for the clarity of one's sentence. I don't recall encountering these problems in the other Pout-Pout Fish books - although this is the third title in the series, it is the fifth that I have read - which always struck me as scanning fairly well, with a sing-songy, limerick-style rhythm that would make for a good read-aloud. It's unfortunate, as I do think the message here, that you don't need to know everything at the beginning, and shouldn't compare your status as a new student with those who are already well established, and further along in their studies, is a positive one. I also appreciate the colorful artwork, with its many humorous details, such as the posters in Mr. Fish's school, advertising such things as Leonardo de Pinchy (a crab) or Michelanjellyo (a jellyfish).

All in all, this was a mixed bag, and a bit of a disappointment for someone who enjoyed the other books about this piscine character and his underwater adventures. I think die-hard Pout-Pout Fish fans will probably still enjoy it, but it definitely isn't the strongest in the series. ( )