On the last day of second grade, a young boy looks back on the school year and recites a catalog of experiences that mark how things have changed from the school year’s beginning to end. By year’s end, he has new friends and he has grown apart from (and annoyed with) an old one. He’s learned about Albert Einstein, and Beezus and Ramona. He’s written a poem, drawn many pictures (“This is anger. This is happiness. This is William. This is Joseph.”), read many books, built many towers, and written his name in cursive. And he is primed with new questions to which he can’t wait to learn the answers, just as he can’t wait to accomplish even more—once he gets to third grade. Amy Schwartz has a gift for conveying a child’s view on the world. It shines in this sweet, unsentimental look at how much children can and do accomplish, inviting young readers and listeners to think about how much they, too, have changed and grown. (Ages 5–8)