Sal is eager to start first grade, but nothing goes as she’d imagined after she and her best friend, Griff, get different teachers. Griff has Ms. Flowers, who is young, wears red shoes, and has a tape-measure belt. Sal (white) gets Ms. McCormick, who is older and wears shoes that look like “loaves of underbaked bread.” In the coming days at school, Sal longs to be in Ms. Flowers’s class, which is clearly more fun; she dresses like Ms. Flowers and looks for ways to get switched. An uncomfortable disagreement with Griff adds to Sal’s unhappiness. At home, Sal is frustrated by having to share her bedroom with little sister, Poppy, and jealous of big brother Billy’s job as a dog-sitter. Sal agrees to getting her often-tangled hair cut shorter, realizing it will give her one more thing in common with Ms. Flowers. Instead, it makes her question whether she’s still the same Sal she was before first grade. As in the earlier Miller Family books, Sal’s parents provide love, stability, and reassurance as she navigates unsettling emotional terrain. But it is Ms. McCormick who provides much-needed comfort when Sal is upset one morning, an encounter that leaves Sal feeling a meaningful connection to, and genuine warmth for, her teacher. Solidly grounded in Sal’s perspective, this tenderly funny story shines with its honest depiction of and respect for Sal’s messy feelings.