Trina Heidt (Children's Literature)
The first day of kindergarten can be a time of anxiety, excitement or even fear. These emotions are all addressed as Miss Bindergarten and her soon-to-be students each prepare for their upcoming first day of class. Children will be entertained and educated along the way through rhyming text and humorous, lively watercolor and gouache illustrations. The book serves double duty as a highly entertaining alphabet book and as a guide to what children can look forward to on their own first day of kindergarten. 1996, Dutton, $14.99. Ages 3 to 6.

Jan Lieberman (Children's Literature)
This is a charming story that is also an ABC book that both teaches and entertains. Ms. Wolff gives us a behind the scenes look at Miss B. as she prepares for that first day of school. The animal kindergartners are full of fun as they get ready: "Jesse Sike pedals her bike. Kiki Wong hops along. Lenny Loome says, 'Vroo-vroo-vroom!'" The expressions on the faces of these 5-year-olds are truly winning. Teachers will appreciate Miss B's efforts to make her room attractive. 1996, Dutton, $14.99. Ages 3 to 7.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, 1996)
An inviting look at the first day of school in Miss Bindergarten's class. The simple rhyming text tells how the animal children get ready for the big event; as a bonus, the names of the students are listed alphabetically, each first letter corresponding to its animal type (Jessie is a jaguar, Zak is a zebra, etc.): "Gwen McGunny/packs her bunny./Henry Fetter/fights his sweater." The procession is interspersed with the preparations of Miss Bindergarten, aided by her pet cockatoo, in her classroom. Wolff's fine illustrations add texture to a fairly simple concept. The teacher is depicted as an efficient sheepdog; eager and organized, she tapes notes on her furniture reminding her to "have fun," yet forgets to take the price tag off her dress. The use of extinct animals for the more obscure letters only adds to the fun. In this soothing introduction to an anxiety-filled event, Slate (Who Is Coming to Our House?, 1988, etc.) makes the first day a pleasure for everyone involved. 1996, Dutton, $14.99. © 1996 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Elizabeth Bush (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September 1996 (Vol. 50, No. 1))
The newest class of kindergartners are rising and shining for their first day of school, but their teacher has a jump on them. Up at six o'clock, Miss Bindergarten packs her hatchback with crates of classroom necessities, and while "Brenda Heath brushes her teeth" and "Danny Hess rushes to dress," the teacher sets up the play kitchen and hangs the growth chart. At nine o'clock "Wanda Chin marches in," "Zach Blair finds his chair," and "oh, oh, oh!-the fun's begun!" But there's more going on here than just getting ready for school-too much, in fact. Each student appears alphabetically by name, so some ABC study is obviously in order. Moreover, each character is an animal whose given initial repeats its species initial (Quentin is a quokka, as we learn from an appended chart); Miss Bindergarten herself appears to be a border collie, but since Danny the Dog is just a dog and Teacher isn't coded on the chart, youngsters may not see how she fits into the pattern. Line-and-watercolor animals are rendered as generically colored cartoons, making all but the most familiar creatures difficult to relate to their real-life counterparts. Parents prepping wary tykes for their first day in the "big school" will be better served by the gentle humor of Stoeke's Minerva Louise at School, reviewed below. Ad--Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. (c) Copyright 1996, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1996, Dutton, 40p, $14.99. Ages 4-6 yrs.

Kathie Krieger Cerra (The Five Owls, January/February 1997 (Vol. 11, No. 3))
Snappy rhymes call for spirited pictures, and that is just what is delivered in Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten. Miss Bindergarten, a black-and-white dog, gets ready for school, and so do her students, twenty-six different animals, whose names traipse through the alphabet in a dead run to get to class. "It is the first day of kindergarten, and--oh, oh, oh!--Adam Krupp wakes up. Brenda Heath brushes her teeth. Christopher Beaker finds his sneaker." Thus the book begins, followed by a rhythmic refrain, every time three new students are introduced to the reader: "Miss Bindergarten gets ready for kindergarten." The text displays internal rhyme as well as rhymed couplets, plus dancing rhythm reflective of the students' energy. As each one gets ready and makes her or his way to school, there are antics typical of real children: rushing to dress, cooling cocoa, fighting a sweater, saying "I won't go." Ashley Wolff's large format watercolor and gouache paintings lend drama to this exuberant book. Illustration of the children's preparations is assigned by the text, but Miss Bindergarten's "getting ready" is carried entirely by the pictures. This begins with the two title pages, the first showing Miss Bindergarten's 6 a.m. wake-up by two clocks, alarm and cuckoo. She arrives two hours early, at 7 a.m. by the school clock, to face a darkened, packed up room, and uses her time during the refrains to whip it into shape. The arranging of storybooks, the sorting of blocks, the setting up of easels and paints, and everything else needed for an exciting day in kindergarten is finished by the time Miss Bindergarten greets her students at the door. The names of all the animal kindergartners are found beneath their school pictures on the last page--Adam Alligator, Brenda Beaver, Christopher Cat. The diversity of animals seems to hint at the variety of children in contemporary classrooms. There's even a student in a wheelchair--Lenny Lion. Young children and their teachers will love this book, grounded as it is in their real lives, yet taking flight into make-believe through its animal characters. 1996, Dutton, 9 x11, 32 pages, $14.99. Ages 4 to 7.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, 1996)
In an ingenious alphabet and animal-identification book, Miss Bindergarten (a dog) and her new students (animals from 'A' to 'Z') get ready for the first day of school. There's much to look at in the cheerful, detailed, contemporary illustrations, and the internal rhymes in each short sentence and the recurring refrain of the title make the book a natural for reading aloud (and for chanting along with). Category: Fiction. 1996, Dutton, 40pp.. Ages 5 to 9. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average.