Everything I Know About Zombies, I Learned in Kindergarten

Everything I Know About Zombies, I Learned in Kindergarten is a fresh look at the very popular zombie genre. Told from the point of view of a precocious nine-year-old, already used to managing the foster care system with her six-year-old sister, Letitia Johnson is not your typical zombie novel protagonist. When a sudden zombie attack hits her elementary school during the school day, Letitia quickly gathers her sister Jahayra and as many of the other kindergarteners she can, and waits out the assault by hiding in the classroom bathroom, having to listen to the deaths of other students, teachers and the background noises of emergency services. After days in the bathroom, they emerge to find themselves left behind by everyone, alone in the middle of the Bronx.

The traditional zombie story is usually focused on adult characters with lots of guns and fighting experience, but other than secondary characters, (Carl from the Walking Dead), children are never really a part of the story, which sets this book apart. But author Kevin Wayne Williams also delivers a well written story on top of a new vision of the zombie book. The dialog of the children rings true, and Letitia is exceptionally streetsmart and adapts quickly to her new situation of organizing her zombie-killing kindergarten followers. Armed only with what they can easily handle, they have to leave their school and find their way across the Bronx and find where the adults have retreated to safety.

Make no mistake, this isn’t a children’s book about zombies. It’s violent, graphic and more of a horror novel than anything else. The children might even make the story more tense, as the natural instinct to protect your children floats in the back of your mind. This is definitely a book to join some of the classic zombie novels.