The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! and Who is the Mystery Reader? by Mo Willems

Today's guest contributor, Benji Martin, is a librarian and educator from Montgomery, Alabama. He serves as the elementary school librarian at Saint James School, and blogs at Tales of an Elementary School Librarian. You can find him on Twitter at @mrBenjimartin.

I used to jokingly refer to the Geisel award as the “Elephant and Piggie Award”. It seemed to me that Mo Willems was bringing the award home every year for his latest E & P installment. In my head, Mo Willems was basically a Geisel award factory, pumping them out whenever he felt like it.

I imagined Mo and Trixie sitting down at breakfast and talking about what the day was going to look like. Trixie would be bringing her Knuffle Bunny in to school for show-and-tell or something like that, and Mo would say, “Well, I haven’t won a major award in a while, and there’s some space left in my display case, so I think I’m going to sit down and write another 'Elephant and Piggie' book.”

I looked it up and saw that he had only actually won the gold medal two times, in 2008 and 2009. He received a Geisel honor in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, and is, by far, the author and illustrator recognized by the Geisel committee most often. He’s the only person to win the gold medal twice, and no one else has been awarded more than two honors.

All of that Geisel love was for Elephant and Piggie, though. Knuffle Bunny and the Pigeon have gotten some Caldecott recognition, but nothing Geisel-wise. So, what about the newest Pigeon book, The Pigeon HAS to Go to School? Will this be the year that the Geisel committee ends Mo’s five year Geisel drought?

The Pigeon HAS to Go to School!

Cover of The Pigeon HAS to Go to
School! by Mo Willems

Let me just tell you, I love a good back-to-school book. I am a school librarian, and the summer is long. I come in to the school year a little rusty, and out of practice when it comes to planning my class story times. It’s all good, though. The story times on the first week of school practically create themselves. I can read Rocking in my School Shoes, We Don’t Eat Our Classmates or School’s First Day of School while I get back into the groove of things. The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! Is another fun one to add to my back-to-school arsenal.


Most of my students already know the Pigeon well, and in this particular book, I think they enjoy sharing the anxieties of a new school year with a familiar character. The Pigeon is very nervous about starting school for the first time. He freaks out a bunch, as the Pigeon will do, and then changes his mind completely when he realizes that a bus will be taking him to school, which is a fun inside joke for those who have read the first Pigeon book.

Image from The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! by Mo Willems

Is it Geisel award material, though? It’s a good book, but is it distinguished? I think it is a great addition to the Pigeon series, but does it do anything new or different? Is it individually distinct?


Unfortunately, for me, this book doesn’t really tell a new story. I’ve seen the “anxious character starting school” book pretty often. It doesn’t really stand out among other back-to-school books, and it isn’t the best Pigeon book Mo has written, either. If I was sitting on the Geisel award committee this year, it would be very hard for me to say that The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! is one of the most distinguished beginning readers of 2019. I will be reading it to my students every August, probably for the rest of my career, and I think it’s a wonderful book, but when I stop and think about what “distinguished” really means to me, this one doesn’t quite hit the mark.

Who is the Mystery Reader?

Cover of Who is the Mystery
Reader? by Mo Willems

The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! isn’t Mo’s only chance for a Geisel this year, though! Who is the Mystery Reader? is the second book in Mo’s "Unlimited Squirrels" series, and definitely fits in that beginning reader category, at least for most of the book.

I can’t help but think of Elephant and Piggie when I read these "Unlimited Squirrels" books. They have the same dialog-driven format, with lots of white space. Although, I do sometimes feel like the large number of characters takes away from some of the simplicity that made the "Elephant and Piggie" books so genius. Gerald and Piggie are very different, and their voices are so distinct. I don’t feel that way about the squirrels. I have trouble telling them apart sometimes.

In the first section of the book, the main story, the language is pretty simple and perfect for a pre-k through 2nd grade reader. The words that might offer the child a challenge like “mystery” appear often enough to ensure knowledge retention.

The story is unique and, to me, very distinguished. The idea of the mystery super reader is original, and the squirrels teaching each other to sound out the words is appropriate for kids who are learning to read. I think kids will love that they know what the stop sign says before the squirrels figure it out. 


I think if the book stopped there, after the first section, it would have been a very short beginning reader, but it might have been on the Geisel committee’s radar. After that, though, I feel like Mo tries to do too much.

Image from Who is the Mystery Reader? by Mo Willems

At one point, the squirrels bring in this big text book called the Book of Wonders, and they learn about the earliest types of writing like cuneiform and hieroglyphs. While this is all interesting, and something I would have loved as a child, I feel like the language in the book, which was so accessible to the child learning to read before, takes a drastic turn and becomes much more difficult. I feel like this part will be frustrating for the kid who has been working their way through the book. A new reader will either ignore this part completely, or will, hopefully, find an adult to help. For me, that one small section of the book probably takes it out of Geisel award contention.


Will Mo Willem’s five year drought end in 2020? My guess is probably not. I think that Who is the Mystery Reader? has a better chance than The Pigeon HAS to Go to School!, but in the end, neither really scream ‘GEISEL AWARD WINNER!!!” at me like some of Mo’s other books have in the past.