Rain School (review)

It's the first day of school for Thomas, who lives in the African country of Chad, and when he arrives at the schoolyard he finds that there is no school. "We will build our school," says his teacher. "This is the first lesson." After Thomas and his schoolmates build the school from mud and grass, they're ready for their nine-month school year with their devoted and enthusiastic teacher; at the end of the school year, the rains come and wash the mud-based building away. Though the title is a little misleading, since it's actually no-rain school, the writing is vigorous and evocative ("The dry dirt road is filling up with children. Big brothers and big sisters are leading the way"); Thomas' neophyte role makes him a sympathetic entry point for young audiences who, like him, are relying on older kids to fill in the picture. The illustrations are dramatic and inviting, with the black linework strong yet casual and nimble in its delineation of the excited kids (sometimes looking out at the viewer as if they were being photographed) and their self-built surroundings; more immediately striking is the array of bright colors, in mottled, strongly resisting pigments that sometimes suggest fresco, sometimes crayon, against the richly textured sandy-gold walls of the mud school. The notion that school on the other side of the world is both different and similar will be interesting to schoolgoers and aspirants, and this could elicit discussion about other kinds of ways schools could and do work. There are no notes.