As you know, our family moved across town just after Christmas of last year, and my kids had to switch schools halfway through kindergarten. The transition went well, thank goodness, and we could not be happier with the new school – my kids have had great teachers and they’ve made lots of friends. Huge thumbs up all around.

Those early days were stressful and scary, though – and I remember how nervous Mallory was on that first day. It warmed my heart tremendously to see two special little girls, who have since become Mallory’s very dear friends, approach her from each side and take her by the hand to show her around the classroom. Here’s a picture from that day…you can see how apprehensive Mallory was, poor bug.

I was thinking of my kids and that whole experience as I read Elena’s Big Move, the story of a young girl who moves from Puerto Rico to the United States, leaving behind her home, school, and her friends. Elena, the young girl in the story, learns that her family will be moving to Indiana for her father’s job. She prepares for the move by taking lots of photographs of all the places and people in Puerto Rico that are important to her and which hold special memories. She puts these photos in a scrapbook to take with her and share with her new friends in Indiana.

After reading this story, I thought to myself, this is genius. I really wish I would have come up with this idea when we were getting ready to move. Although it would have been tedious trying to carve out some time to run around taking pictures of “our” McDonald’s and Starbucks and park playground and school classroom, I would have done it. It might have really helped all of the kids adjust to life in our new ‘hood, if we’d had a few memories of our old one.

This book would be a great addition to your school’s library or to your own library at home – it deals with a common life changing situation in a neat way – plus, it’s full of fun Spanish words. Check it out!

This book was provided to my family by the publisher for review purposes. We are donating it to our school’s library so other kids can benefit from it, too!

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