With support from a wise teacher, Gilbert discovers that everyone can do different things well, including making new friends, on the day he begins first grade and his little sister starts preschool.
Gilbert, a chipmunkish critter, has to write valentine poems for each of his classmates because his teacher says that Valentine’s Day is about liking each other. He enjoys writing the cards for his friends, but for two mean kids in his class, Lewis and Margaret, he writes the worst cards he can (“Roses are red, you wet your bed, I think that you have rocks in your head” ). After the initial uproar, the hostility is finally turned around with good humor and with lots of nonsense and forgiveness. The rabbit, skunk, bear, and porcupine characters display droll, very human classroom behavior. Kids will enjoy all the rhymes, and they’ll want to make up their own playful parodies, both mushy and mean.
